MEMORY

Multi-Store Model of memory

Description

• Memory : A system of retaining information from our daily experiences.
• It has three basic features - coding (the format that information is held in), storage (the retaining of information in the memory system) and retrieval (accessing information when it is needed).

• The MSM theory states that all stores are unitary. The MSM states that information flows through the three separate stores in a fixed linear order and each store has different roles in the memory process.
• the sensory organs detect and environmental stimuli, once paid attention to it is transferred to the short term store. Information can stay in the STM for 18 - 30 seconds without rehearsal until it is forgotten. Rehearsal allows for info to go into long term store. In which information is held for a life time.

Strengths of the MSM (AO3)

• One strength of the MSM is it has a supporting case study from patient KF, which supports the notion that STM and LTM are separate stores. Patient KF suffered from brain damage due to a motor cycle accident. KF could not store short term information in his memory, however LTM (Long term memory) was still intact and could be stored in his brain. Shallice and Warrington were the names of the two psychologists who studied patient KF in the year 1970. The pair administered psychological tests in which subjects were presented with a list of numbers and were asked to recall them shortly after with patient KF being amongst the participants and was found to only recall a single digit in the test. This shows that the LTM and STM store are separate as he had only lost his STM but not his LTM, otherwise he would’ve had both intact or both lost. Therefore this increases validity of the study.

• There is research to support that the short and long term memory are separate memory stores as indicated by the Multi-store model of memory.  When participants were asked to recall a list of words they were more likely to remember the first few and the last few words and were more likely to forget those in the middle of the list.  The words at the beginning of the list were able to be rehearsed and transferred into the LTM. Although, words at the end of the list were able to remembered because they were still in the STM.  Memory appears to consist of separate stores and the position of the word on the list determined which memory store the word would be stored in; rather than a singular store that stored all the words on the list. Therefore, increasing the validity of the MSM assumption that the STM and LTM are separate memory stores.

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Weaknesses of the MSM

• There is research that criticizes the MSM’s view that the LTM is unitary. Clive Wearing contracted a viral infection causing extensive brain damage. He lost his long-term declarative memory, e.g. he has no memory of his wedding. But he still has use of his long-term procedural memory, e.g. he can still play piano. The MSM believed that the LTM store was unitary, i.e. in its simplest form. This view is contradicted by Clive Wearing because he demonstrated that our LTM is compartmentalized into declarative and procedural memory. In Clive Wearing’s case he had lost declarative memory and retained procedural memory because the LTM contains separate sub-sections. A view that isn’t acknowledge by the MSM. Therefore, reducing the validity of the MSM.

• There is research to criticize the MSM over emphasize on rehearsal. Brown and Kulik found that flashbulb memories were a special type of memory that required no rehearsal to be stored long term and these memories would be remembered because they were funny, distinctive or significant. Flashbulb memories contradict the MSM’s view that information must be rehearsed to be transferred to the LTM. This is because these memories can be stored in the LTM store with no rehearsal, which contradicts the importance placed on rehearsal by the MSM. Therefore reducing the validity of the MSM.

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Working Model of Memory

Description

• The WM model replaces the idea of a unitary STM. It states that the STM is much more active and complex than the MSM suggested. WM is made up of 4 interconnected and interactive components.
• The first component is the central executive, it allocates resources to other components by deciding which task is most important and should be handled first, it decides what the WM should pay attention to. The CE has little to no capacity and with practice tasks become automated and require less attentional demands from the CE, allowing for other tasks to be done.
• The second component is the phono logical loop, and it encode information acoustically. It has two parts, the primary acoustic store, which is linked to speech perception, it is a Short term store that receives acoustic information – holds for approximately 1-2 seconds. Remembers sounds in same the order they were presented. The second store is the Articulatory process which is linked to speech production, Used to rehearse and store sounds collected by the PAS, Capacity of 2 seconds of speech. Info from the PAS is repeated in the loop to prevent decay (e.g. repeated telephone number in your head.
• The third component is the Visuo spatial sketchpad. Codes and rehearses information through visualizing mental pictures, Has a limited capacity of 3-4 objects, it is Sub-divided into: Visual cache – stores visual info about form and color and Inner scribe – handles spatial relations ALSO rehearses and transfers info in VC to the CE.
• The episodic buffer takes information for VSSP and PL and integrates them together. It helps with tasks that require both slave systems. It is a Temporal storage system. Limited capacity of about four chunks of information

Strengths of the WM

• There is research to support that the STM consists of individual separate stores each with their own limited capacity. Baddeley and Hitch found that participants could do two different tasks that used two different stores (i.e. visual and verbal). They found that when participants were asked to complete a verbal task in the Articulatory Loop and a separate visual task in the VSS, recall is not affected. However, when the same participants were asked to complete two similar tasks (i.e. both in the Articulatory Loop) then recall on the first task is affected. This demonstrates that the short term memory consists of multiple separate stores that each has a limited capacity. This is evident because participants could easily complete tasks that work on different slave systems, i.e. not overloading any of their capacities. However, attempts to perform two similar tasks that active the same slave system resulted in recall on the first task being affected because the slave system’s capacity was overloaded and wasn’t able to deal with two similar tasks simultaneously. Therefore, this increases the validity of the WMM
• There is research to support the WMM from brain scans. Cohen et al found brain activity was higher in Broca’s area (responsible for speech production) when participants were completing a verbal task. Additionally, regions of the occipital lobe (responsible for visual processing) were activated when participants completed a visual task. This research provides some physical evidence for existence of the phonological loop and VSSP. Additionally, it supports the phonological loops role in auditory and speech based tasks, and the VSSP’s role in visual tasks. Therefore, this suggests that the assumptions made by the WMM were correct, increasing the validity of the WMM.

Weakness of the WM

• There is research to criticize the unitary view of the CE as suggested by the WMM. The case study EVR had a tumor removed. EVR performed well on tests requiring reasoning which suggested his CE was intact. However, he had poor decision making skills. The central executive is involved in higher mental processes, i.e. reasoning and decision making. Thus, if the CE was a single unitary store we would assume that higher mental processes are completely normal or completely damaged. However, the fact that some processes of the CE can remain intact while some areas show clear damage. This suggests there are several components to the CE and in EVR’s case only one was damaged. Therefore, the WMM’s unitary view of the CE appears incorrect, which reduces the validity of the WMM.

• Research has criticized the working memory model for failing to account for musical memory.  Berz found participants were able to listen to instrumental music without impairing performance on other acoustic tasks.  However, according to WMM, listening to instrumental music should occupy the PAS’s limited capacity, making it difficult to carry out other acoustic tasks. The participants were able to carry out the instrumental task along with the acoustic task because there may be a ‘musical memory’ component that dealt with the instrumental task. However, the WMM didn’t account for all types of memory, i.e. musical. Therefore, the WMM is an incomplete model of memory, which reduces the validity of the model.

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Comparison of MSM and WM

Types of Long term memory

• Tulving suggests that LTM is a multi-part system made up of two or more components (sub-systems) containing different types of information.
• Long term memory is split into:

1- Procedural memory (implicit - unconscious)

2- Declarative memory (conscious) which is split into = episodic / semantic.

Declarative memory (Conscious)

^^Episodic memory: ^^

• ability to remember personal experiences and events (episodes) from our lives
• Require a conscious (explicit) effort to recall – need to search your memory to recall info for an event
• A single episode can include people, places and objects - bound into one memory episode.
• Strength of the memory depends on emotion present at the time it is coded. E.g., traumatic events are often recalled due to high emotional content.
• The person should remember when it happened

^^Semantic memory: ^^

• Contains facts about the world and is always being added to.
• Conscious (explicit) type of memory - have to make an effort to recall a particular fact
• Represents - knowledge base for everything you know; less personal and is not time-stamped.

Procedural memory (Unconscious)

• This is a memory for action motor skills – can be recalled without conscious awareness (implicit).
• For example, riding a bike depends on a developed skill - automatically accessed from procedural memory.
• Actions occur without us need to recall how they happen (e.g., changing gear on a bike).
• Many are formed early in life – involving learning of important motor skills

Strengths of research of types of LTM

• Tulving et al (1989) used brain scan studies to show that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. In this research, participants were asked to perform various memory tasks whilst scanning their brains using PET scans. Tulving found that episodic memories were recalled from the pre-frontal cortex and semantic memories in the posterior region of the cortex. This suggests that the types of memory are separate stores and the PET scans provide physical and objective neuro-imaging evidence. Further supporting research has confirmed many times that these areas of the brain are involved with the different types of LTM which increases the validity of these findings and the theory of different types of long term memory.

• The notion of their being different types of long term memory have significant real world application. Episodic memory is the type of memory that is most often affected by mild cognitive impairments. Furthermore, Belleville et al (2006) demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment. This suggests that if psychologists know about the separate stores of LTM then treatment programmes can be developed to help these people. Therefore, our understanding of their being different types of LTM is useful because it can improve the lives of people. Thus, the theory of long term memory is not a research artefact.

• Case study research further supports the notion of there being different types of long term memory. Clive Wearing contracted a viral infection, which lead to extensive brain damage. Clive Wearing lost his declarative memory, i.e. he had no memory of his wedding. Although he still had a normal functioning procedural memory, i.e. he could still play the piano. This demonstrates that long term memory isn’t one single unitary store and consists of different types of memories meaning  that one can be damaged, while the other can function adequately. Therefore, increasing the validity of the theory of types of long term memory.

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Weaknesses of types of memory within LTM

• A weakness of the theory that it is difficult to separate episodic and semantic memories. The possible overlap of episodic and semantic memories raises the question of whether episodic memories are a gateway to forming semantic memories or whether it is sometimes possible to form semantic memories independently. This is a weakness as the LTM presents the episodic and semantic memory stores to be completely separate stores. However it is unclear if semantic memories are a gradual transformation to episodic memories.

Explanations of Forgetting

• Forgetting can be defined as a failure to retrieve memories from the long term store.
• This is either due to interference or retrieval failure.
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