Aim
To investigate the relationship between the long term and short term memory stores when the short term memory has been impaired
Participant
K.F was a young man who is 28 years old that was in a motorcycle accidence when he was 17
Sustained a left parieto-occipital fracture in that accident and was unconscious for 10 weeks
2 years later he started epilepsy and in 1965 was investigated
He was totally unable to repeat letters and numbers, shows defect in his STM, his LTM remains intact
Procedure
Researchers used triangulation, testing patient K.F. in free recall with verbal material (numbers, letters, words) presented in strings of 1, 2, 3, and 4 items.
K.F. learned and recalled these items after a specified period.
Additional auditory tests assessed K.F.'s verbal and auditory short-term memory capacities.
Findings
Auditory performance on the task is related to numbers of items in each string
KF was only able to repeat one item reliably and proportion of items decreases as the string length increases
Memory of visual presented material > auditory presented material
Conclusion
KF's STM was severely damaged in that its capacity is greatly reduced
Identifying difference between auditory and visual memory capacity suggests 2 separate stores
KF intact LTM and impaired STM contradicts the MSM theory that material in LTM has first been processed in the STM
It does support Atkinson and Shiffrins contention that there are seperate memory stores for STM and LTM
Strengths
Research triangulation utilised: increases reliability and validity
Informed consent
KF’s identity was remained anonymous
Limitations
Ethically non-replicable (case study)
Researchers must ensure to report unbiased information