MSM - cognitive

• who made the MSM

  Atkinson and Shiffrin
• when was it made

  1968
• how did the model describe memory (4)

  1 - memory enters sensory memory through environmental stimuli

  2 - if attention is paid it transfers to short term memory, if not it decays

  3 - undergoes maintenance rehearsal to keep it in STM

  4 - if elaborative rehearsal happens memory transfers to LTM if not it is forgotten
• first store of the model

  sensory memory
• how is memory encoded in the sensory memory

  . through the senses - ionic, echoic, haptic

  - ionic store, encodes visually

  - echoic store, encodes acoustically

  - haptic store, encodes through touch
• what is the duration of memory in the SM

  a fraction of a second
• what is the capacity of the SM

  uncertain but thought to be very high - due to the large amount of eye cells etc
• what is the second store of the MSM


  short term mmory
• how is memory encoded in the STM

  acoustically - through sound, in auditory/verbal form
• what is the duration of the STM

  15-30 seconds
• what has to happen in the STM on order for memories to stay there

  maintenance rehearsal
• what is the capacity of STM, what is the number based on

  5-9 (based on millers magic number 7+- theory)
• what has to happen to transfer memories from STM to LTM

  elaborate rehearsal
• how is memory in the LTM encoded

  semantically - through meaning
• what is the duration of the LTM

  potentially a lifetime
• what is the capacity of the LTM

  potentially infinite
• summary of MSM


  . describes memory as a linear series of three basic, seperate stores that need attention and rehearsal to move information through
• whos evidence supports the STM described in the MSM

  Peterson and Peterson
• how does Peterson and Peterson support the STM (what was their experiment)

  . conducted an experiment where participants were required to remember a trigram of 3 consonants for increasing intervals of time

  . the trigram was read out loud and participants were given a number they had to count back from in threes - as an interference task to prevent rehearsal

  .correct recall was likely after short intervals but performance decreased after 15-18 seconds
• what does Peterson and Petersons experiment support in the STM

  supports decay occurs after around 15 seconds proving the short term memory has limited duration
• whos evidence supports the LTM described in the MSM

  Bahricks
• what was Bahricks experiment

  . did memory tests on the names and faces of students in their high school yearbook

  . used 400 participants from ages 17-74

  . found identification of names and faces was 90% accurate within 15 years of leaving school and 70-80% after 48 years
• what did Bahricks experiment support in the LTM

  shows that although memory may deteriorate over time, LTM stays fairly resilient, proving its potentially lifetime duration
• who evidence supported the existence of two distinct stores within memory

  Glancer and Cunitz
• what did Glancer and Cunitz experiment show

  . from a word list people are most likely to remember the first five or so words due to the primary effect and the last five or so words due to the recency effect
• what did G+Cs experiment support within the distinguishment of two seperate stores

  . words at the beginning of list had been rehearsed in STM and transferred to LTM and end words were still held in STM at point of recall due to duration of STM
• MSM evidence (2)


  1 - HM: supports separation between STM and LTM stores

  2 - baddeley found STM and LTM have different methods of encoding
• MSM application (2)


  1 - tells us how we can improve our memory in certain situations

  2 - in education: importance of rehearsal in relation to revision
• MSM strengths (4)

  . good evidence and applications
• MSM shortcomings

  1 - reductionist: ignores role of individual differences in the development of memories, ignores role of different areas of the brain

  2 - doesnt take individual differences into account

  3 - mechanistic: ignores the role of emotion that may impact the processing and encoding of memories

  4 - can't explain flashbulb memories
• MSM alternative theory


  . WMM suggests MSM is overly simplistic as it doesn't take into account the importance of processing in the STM