MSM

• Who proposed the MSM?

  Atkinson and Shiffrin
• What is the process of the MSM?

  • Sensory register
  • STM
  • LTM

  
• What are the characteristics of the sensory register?

  Duration: short (0.5s)

  Capacity: large

  Coding: specific to each sense
• Characteristics of STM

  Duration: 18 seconds

  Capacity: 7 +/- 2 items

  Coding: Acoustic
• What is rehearsal?

  Conscious repetition of info that you want to remember.

  Helps move info from STM to LTM
• Miller - STM Capacity


  • Most people retain about 7 items
  • Numbers recall is better than letters
  • Acoustic is better than visual
• LTM characteristics

  Duration: unlimited (lifetime)

  Capacity: unlimited

  Coding: semantic
• What are the types of LTM?

  • Procedural
  • Semantic
  • Episodic
• What is semantic memory?

  Knowledge about words, concepts, language and facts
• What is procedural memory?

  Motor memory of how to do things
• What is episodic memory?

  Time stamped info about events we have personally experienced
• Research support


  • Jacobs + Miller for capacity
  • Baddley for coding
• Research support - COUNT

  • Artificial situations and consonant syllables
  • lacks mundane realism
  • not meaningful info is tested e.g. telephone numbers or addresses
  • harder to generalise to real-life = low ecological validity
• LTM + STM too simplistic

  Tulving - different types of of LTM (semantic, episodic, procedural)

  Baddley and Hitch - WMM is more reflective of memory as an activity (not unitary)
• Watkins + Clarke - elaborate rehearsals


  More rehearsals are better than prolonged ones to increase transfer of info
• Shallice + Warrington - KF


  • Has amnesia which affect his STM
  • when info read TO him (acoustic info) = worse recall
  • when info was read BY him (visual info) = better recall
  • shows multiple components of STM