Multi-store Model Of Memory
Cards (9)
- Sensory Register
- Unlimited Capacity
- 250ms Duration
- Multimodal Coding - Echoic (Auditory) / Iconic (Visual) / Haptic (Touch) / Olfactory (Smell)
- Sensory Register -> Short Term Memory Store -> Long Term Memory Store
- STM Store
- Capacity of 7+-2
- 18-30s Duration
- Acoustic Coding
- LTM Store
- Unlimited Capacity
- Lasts potentially forever
- Semantic Coding
- Information is passed from the senses to the STM when attention is paid to it. In order for information to be kept in the STM it needs to be rehearsed. If rehearsal is maintained then information will pass to the LTM store.
- Coding Research
- Baddeley - pps found it harder to remember acoustically similar words directly after but harder to remember semantically different words a long time after encoding them. This supports claims of coding with STM and LTM.
- Capacity Research
- Miller - found most people have a digit span of 7 +- 2 items on average. 7 letters can be recalled as easily as 7 words as we chunk items to help memory.
- Duration Research
- Peterson + Peterson - pps given trigrams to remember, were asked to count back from a 3 digit number to prevent rehearsal. Pps were stopped after 3s on the first trial, 6 on the second and so on until they could not remember the trigram. Trigrams could remain in memory for around 18-30s.
- Bahrick - 392 pps looked at high school year book photos and stated whether they remembered the person or not. Graduated 15 years ago -> correct 90% of the time / 50 years ago -> 70% of the time -- LTM lasts potentially forever.
- Evaluation
- Research support - HM could hold info in his STM but not to his LTM store. Gives evidence for two separate stores.
- However, when HM was given the star drawing task through a mirror he got better every time. This suggests he could make new long term memories indicating there are different types of LTM the model doesn't account for.
- KF shows that there are multiple types of STM as, after brain damage, he could hold visual information in his STM but not verbal. Despite this however, KF and HM do not represent most people so these criticisms are not fully valid.