multi-store model Flashcards
(38 cards)
the multi store model of memory created by
Atkinson and Shiffrin
proposed that memory consisted of
sensory register, short term memory and long term memory
definition of duration, capacity and coding
duration - amount of time information stays in memory store for
capacity - how much can be stored
coding - how the information is processed
two forms of coding in sensory memory
iconic memory
echoic memory
what is iconic memory
visual information from the eyes
things you see, stored as images
what is echoic memory
auditory input from the ears
things you hear, stored as sounds
evidence for capacity of SM comes from
sperling - presented a grid of letters for less than a second
people recalled on average 4 letters
duration of SM
2 seconds (or less)
encoding of short term memory
STM encodes information acoustically - as sounds
capacity of short term memory
5-9 items of information
7+/-2
duration of STM - experiment by
Peterson & Peterson - the trigram experiment
the trigram experiment
24 students recall meaningless three letter trigrams at different intervals
counted backwards from a specific number, until asked to recall the letters to prevent rehearsal
findings of the trigram experiment
the longer the interval, the less accurate the recall
at 3 seconds 80% of trigrams were correctly recalled
at 18 seconds, 10% were correctly recalled
short term memory has a limited duration of
18 seconds
encoding of long term memory - experiment
Baddeley presented lists of 10 short words
some lists were semantically similar, others were semantically dissimilar
tested immediately and after 20 minute delay
results of Baddeleys experiment
after 20 mins they did poorly on the semantically similar words
this suggests encoding in LTM is semantic - by meaning
capacity of LTM
unlimited
atkinson and shiffrin suggested 4 key features of the multi store model
Unitary, Linear, Rehearsal, Passive
definition of unitary, linear, rehearsal and passive
Unitary - there is only one of each store
Linear - a fixed sequence, cannot be leapfrogged
Rehearsal - moving from STM to LTM
Passive - no decision making or problem solving needed
1 general strength of msm
the first model to try and explain memory - stimulated further research eg WMM
Experimental evidence to support MSM
the primary/recency effect
the primary recency effect experiment
read out a list of words to pps and asked them to recall as many as possible
findings of primary recency effect
tended to recall more from the start and the end of the list, and more likely to forget the middle of list
this supports the idea of there being
a separate STM and LTM