Multi Store Model

• What are the key components of the MSM?

  • Sensory register
  • Short term memory
  • Long term memory
• How are the sensory register and neutral stimulus connected?

  The sensory register detects the stimulus through attention
• How are the short term memory and long term memory connected?

  Through maintenance rehearsal and retrieval
• What is the coding for each part of the multi store model?

  • Sensory register: echoic (sounds) and iconic (visual)
  • Short term memory: acoustic coding
  • Long term memory: semantic
• What did Baddeley’s study show about the coding of STM & LTM?

  PPs in the study struggled to immediately recall acoustically similar words, and also struggled to recall semantically similar words after a 20 min interval
• What are the strengths and limitations of Baddeley’s study into coding?

  • It had high internal validity
  • Lacked mundane realism - the test wasn’t true to life
  • Arguments over whether LTM was truly tested using only a 20 min interval
• What did Jacob’s study tell us about the capacity of STM?

  He tested PP’s digit span and it was 7 +/- 2 items, Miller further showed that the capacity could increase with the use of ‘chunking’ (4 items)
• What were the strengths and limitations of Jacob’s study?

  • Lacked internal validity - carried out a long time ago so lack of control over extraneous variables
  • Reliable - has been repeated over the years with similar results
• What did Peterson & Peterson’s study tell us about the duration of STM?

  PPs had to learn trigrams and rehearsal was prevented by counting backwards. PP then recalled as many trigrams as possible at intervals. Found an average duration of 18 seconds.
• What are the strengths and limitations of Peterson & Peterson’s study?

  • Lacks ecological validity - not true to life
  • Internal validity - highly controlled conditions
• What did Bahrick’s study tell us about the duration of LTM?

  PPs had to recall members from the student yearbook either by photo or random name recall. Tested between 17-74, and recalled remained very accurate. LTM duration was potentially limitless.
• What are the strengths and limitations of Bahrick’s study?

  • High ecological validity - real life experience
  • Lacks internal validity - researchers couldn’t prevent how often PPs looked at their yearbooks before the experiment (confounding variables)
• What are the strengths and limitations of the MSM?

  • Supporting research (Baddeley, Jacob’s) of separate memory stores
  • Too simplistic - there are multiple STMs and LTMs
  • LTM involves more than maintenance rehearsal
• What did Craik & Lockhart’s study find about LTM?

  Their study suggested that transferring info to the LTM relied on how deeply your processed it.
• What is the capacity of the LTM?

  Unlimited