Memory Flashcards
(106 cards)
What is the multi-store model of memory?
This was created by Atkinson and Shiffrin to explain the complexities of our memory. It is made of 3 stores, the Sensory Memory, the short term memory and the long term memory.
Ao1: What is our sensory memory?
This is the store that holds information from our senses e.g sound and sight.
Ao1: How long does our sensory memory hold information for?
NO more than half second.
Ao1: How do we move information from our sensory memory to our short term memory store?
By paying attention to the information.
Ao1: What is our short term memory?
Information held temporarily. The duration is around 20 seconds. Its capacity is 7 +/- 2 which was discovered by Miller. Codes information phonologically and acoustically. Maintenance rehearsal is used to keep information in the short term memory.
Ao1: How is information moved from our short term memory to our long term memory?
This is done through elaborative rehearsal.
Ao1: What is the long term memory?
This is a store which codes information semantically. It has an unlimited duration and capacity compared to the STM.
Ao2: What did Peterson and Peterson’s study involve?
They gave participants trigrams to remember and then gave them distraction tasks where they had to count back in 3’s for a different amounts of time.
Ao2: What did Peterson and Peterson find?
They found that counting back for 20 seconds or more reduced ability to recall the trigrams.
Ao2: How does Peterson and Peterson’s study support the Multi-store model of memory?
The fact that they struggled to recall after being distracted for 20 seconds or more shows that the duration of the Short term memory is 20 seconds as they are unable to keep the trigrams in the short term memory for longer than that.
Ao2: How can you evaluate Peterson and Peterson’s study?
It has high control of extraneous variables meaning internal validity is good, this means we can be sure that the IV is causing the change in the DV. HOWEVER it is highly lacking in mundane realism as it is an artificial task and setting therefore making ecological validity low and making findings hard to generalise to real world phenomena.
Ao2: What happened to HM?
HM had is hippocampus removed to relieve epileptic symptoms. His STM and LTM was fine but he could not make new long term memories suggesting the pathway between the two had been affected.
Ao2: How does the case of HM support the multi-store model of memory?
It supports the idea of functional separation as the two stores on their own were fine but they could no longer interact with each other.
Ao2: What is a problem with the case of HM?
It is only a case study meaning it is ungeneralisable to the general population as we do not know they would react in the same way and this would be unethical to repeat. He could also make new procedural memories which suggests that maybe the LTM, or the pathway is much more complicated than the MSM makes out.
Ao2: What happened to Clive Wearing?
Clive Wearing had a cold sore virus which spread to his brain. This caused brain damaged and now Clive Wearing lives in a snapshot of time, and the only person he recognises is his wife. He could not form new memories or remember things from the past.
Ao2: How does Clive Wearing support the multi-store model of memory?
This shows that once again there is functional separation as his STM is fine but his LTM is not showing how they are separated.
Ao2: What is a problem with the case of Clive Wearing?
Clive Wearing had procedural memory of playing the piano. This seems to suggest that maybe the LTM isn’t one single store but made of many as only parts of his LTM were effected.
Ao2: What happened to patient KF?
KF had brain damage to his STM and they found that his STM for visual information was fine but his STM for verbal information was very poor.
Ao2: What does patient KF suggest about the MSM?
It suggests that actually the STM is not one single store but made of many stores as not all of it was damaged. Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model supports this.
Ao2: Does the multi-store model accurately explain the complexities of our memory?
No, it does not. It fails to recognise that our stores could be made of lots of other stores, therefore it is highly oversimplified. It could be combined with the working memory model which would seem to solve this problem.
Ao1: What is the working memory model?
Created by Baddeley and Hitch. It believes that the STM is not one store but many. It is made of the central executive, the phonological loop, the episodic buffer and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
Ao1: What is the central executive?
This directs our attention towards the other components and has a limited capacity. It is like the driver of the STM.
Ao1: What is the episodic buffer?
This integrates information from all components to make them into one episode. For example, we see a film as one episode, not sound and video separately.
Ao1: What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
This is where we store all visual and spatial information. This is known as our inner eye. It has a limited capacity.