A03 - Memory - Multi-Store Model Of Memory Flashcards
Why did HM not have LTM?
His hippocampus was removed to help with his epilepsy.
A strength of the MSM is that there is supportive research from the case study of HM.
HM’s long-term memory was very damaged. He couldn’t recall the food he had eaten earlier that day or remember the magazine he had been repeatedly reading.
Although his long-term memory was damaged, his short-term memory was intact. HM would perform well on the STM test: immediate digit span.
This supports the multi-store model as it provides evidence for the central feature of the model. This is the idea that there are two separate memory stores of STM and LTM, which increases the validity of MSM.
However, HM is a case study of one individual so the results might not be generalised to others.
Furthermore, HM’s epilepsy medication might’ve affected his brain which made him different to other individuals.
A strength of the MSM is that there is supportive evidence from brain scans that the STM and LTM are distinct stores.
During short-term memory, Beardsley (1997) found out that the prefrontal cortex is active when making a decision but not during long-term memory tasks.
When long-term memory is engaged, Squire (1992) found out that the hippocampus is active.
This provides evidence that there’s more than one memory store because different parts of the brain are active when a different type of memory is used.
Therefore, this objective and scientific evidence increases the validity of the theory.
A limitation of the MSM is that other researchers argue they have over-emphasised the role of the maintenance rehearsal suggesting elaborative rehearsal is more important.
Craik and Lockhart (1972) gave their participants a list of words and asked a question which involved deep or shallow processing.
An example of shallow processing is whether the word was written in capital letters. An example of deep processing is whether the word fitted in with the sentence.
They discovered that participants remembered words more when they were deeply processed.
This different explanation for creating long-term memory was developed into the Levels of Processing theory.
It questions the maintenance rehearsal of the MSM. Therefore, it questions the validity of the model.
A limitation of the MSM has been revealed by case studies such as HM, showing that the model is too simplistic.
The multi-store model claims that long-term memory is one store. However, findings from HM refute this idea.
HM wasn’t able to create new semantic and episodic LTM’s, but he did develop new procedural memories. For example, improvement on a mirror drawing task.
This suggests that long-term memory is made up of more than one store.
Therefore, the multi-store model was influential in the understanding of memory, but it doesn’t offer a full explanation of the complexities of memory.
