January 2010 Describe and evaluate the multi-store model ...



January 2010 Describe and evaluate the multi-store model of memory. Refer to evidence in your answer. (10 marks)

The above diagram shows the multi-store model of memory. Information enters through the sensory register; if attention is paid to it the information enters STM where it can be rehearsed. If it is rehearsed enough it enters LTM. Each of the stores differs in terms of duration, capacity and encoding.

The duration of the sensory register is 1 second. The duration of short-term memory is 18 seconds; this was investigated by Peterson and Peterson. They gave participants trigrams and a counting task to prevent rehearsal for varying lengths of time. After 18 seconds 80% of information had been lost from STM, they established therefore that this was the duration of STM. Clearly, this is much shorter than LTM where we can remember things forever; this study provides evidence for STM and LTM being separate.

Coding differs in STM and LTM. Conrad found that acoustically similar sounds e.g. p, b, t were confused when people had to recall them from their STM. This study was used to conclude that encoding in STM must be acoustic. Furthermore, Baddeley found that encoding in LTM was semantic, because semantically similar words e.g. sleep, kip, nap were confused when people had to recall them from LTM. Both of these studies provide evidence for functional separation of STM and LTM.

Capacity also differs in STM and LTM. The capacity of LTM is potentially unlimited. Miller found that the capacity of STM is 7 items, plus or minus 2.

The different properties which are associated with STM and LTM suggest that they really are separate stores. However, most of the research that has been carried out has been controlled experiments; these experiments may lack ecological validity because any findings might not represent how memory works in the real world.

A further weakness of the MSM is that it may be over-simplified. A case study of a patient named KF revealed that he had a normal LTM but a STM with a capacity of only 2 items. The MSM states that the only way in which information can be transferred from STM to LTM is through rehearsal. If this was correct his LTM would have also been affected.

However, some research evidence does provide support for the MSM. Research from patients with Korsakov syndrome shows that STM is very poor, patients tend to forget things after a couple of seconds, however, their long-term memory is normal. This provides evidence for the idea that STM and LTM are unitary (separate) stores.

Glanzer and Cunitz also provide evidence for the MSM, specifically that the STM and LTM are functionally separate. Participants had a list of words to recall, researchers found that people tended to remember words at the beginning (Primacy effect) and end (Recency effect) of the word list. This suggested that words at the beginning had been rehearsed and transferred to LTM and words at the end were still in STM.

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