MSM essay plan

• MSM AO1

  . memory enters SM through environmental stimuli, if attention is paid memory transfers to STM, if not it decays, in STM undergoes maintenance rehearsal. to transfer to LTM it undergoes elaborate rehearsal.

  SM: encodes through senses - echoic, haptic, ionic- duration = less than fraction of a second, capacity = unknown but though to be high

  STM: encodes acoustically, duration =15-30s, capacity = 5-9 (based on millers magic number +-2), requires maintenance rehearsal to keep memories here

  LTM: encodes semantically, duration = potential lifetime, capacity = potentially infinite
• MSM AO1 strength


  evidence in HM case study - brain damaged patient after surgery, couldn't remember thigs in the long term (LTM damaged) eg nurses name or doing tasks he had done already, but could form new short term memories (STM intact) eg sequences of digits = proves STM +LTM are separate stores

  CA: case study looks at unique case of individuals with brain damage so may not generalise to wider population with 'normal brains' SW: overall evidence - strength as case study standardised so gives some info into memory in brain stores
• MSM AO3 weakness

  reductionist - oversimplifies model and doesn't account for individual differences in the development of memory = could be considered incomplete

  CA: in being reductionist allows it to be simple and provides a framework for understanding memory in looking at main structures briefly = allows other models eg WMM to develop from it

  SW: overall oversimplifying means it overlooks many factors affecting memory eg age, gender, emotions so doesn't provide a complete understanding of memory