Hitch and Baddeley found that the time taken on task 3 was significantly longer because the task involved using the same component - the central executive - making completing the task more difficult. They also found that when different components were used, such as in task 2, the performance was not affected. Recent research has found that the central executive differs between individuals and it can be easily selectively impaired by brain damage. If various functions are used it is suggested that the central
Deeper processing led to improved recognition, which supports the levels of processing theory of memory. To evaluate, a weakness of this study is that it lack generalisability. The study consisted of only 24 participants. This small sample is not representative of the target population as the results could have been due to
They asked participants to perform a reasoning task while simultaneously reciting outloud a list of six digits. If didgit span really is a measure of maximum STM capacity, participants would be expected to show in paired performance on the reasoning task because their STM would be ocupied retaining the 6 digits. However, they found that participants made very few errors on either the reasoning or digit span task, although the speed of veryfying the sentences was slightly slower than when the task was done alone. Baddeley and Hitch concluded that the STM must have more than 1 component and must be involved in processes other than simple storage; eg, reasoning, undestanding and learning. The working memory model consists of four parts: episodic buffer, phonological loop, central executive and visio spatial sketchpad; The episodic buffer is a fairly recent addition to the working memory model.
Finally, the episodic buffer integrates information from different sources. The model has strong research support from dual task studies such as research by Pearson which found that participants who completed an image manipulation task at the same time as a spatial task performed worse compared to those who completed the image manipulation task and an articulatory suppression task. This is because the image manipulation and spatial tasks both required the use of the visuo-spatial sketch pad which made it more difficult for both tasks to be completed simultaneously. In comparison, the articulatory suppression task didn’t use the visuo-spatial sketch pad because it required only the use of the phonological loop. Therefore when the articulatory suppression task was completed at the same time as the image manipulation, separate components were used for each task, allowing the tasks to be completed more efficiently.
There are quite a few criticisms of the MSM. One criticism is that it can be considered to be too simple a model. The MSM suggests that in our brains, we have one block for all our short term memory, and one block for all our long term memory. However, the case study of KF proves this to not be the case. After having a motorbike crash, KF lost a lot of his short term memory, but still had a little bit of functional short term memory.
Research evidence by Glanzer et al demonstrated support for the STM and LTM being different stores. Participants were tasked with recalling word lists with earlier and later words more likely to be re- called and this was known as the primacy and recency effect. This Primacy effect occurs as the first words are transferred to LTM while the Recency effect occurs as the last words are still within the STM. Delays of 10 seconds or more before recall resulted in only a primacy effect with only LTM affected. This highlighted the difference in STM and LTM supporting the multi-store memory model theory.
Sperling then produced an experimental condition where participants were asked to recall specific rows by presenting a tone of high/medium/low pitch that represented the top, middle, or bottom row, to which the participants had to recall just the letters in a particular row. This does not only Lack ecological validity due to it being in a highly controlled laboratory but it also creates a fatigue/practice effect as participants may possibly remember few letters in the experimental condition from the previous experiment or changing conditions could tire them out. However He found that participants, on average could recall 9-10 items of a possible 12. Short term memory has a relatively short duration and small capacity. The encoding that takes place here is mainly through eyes and ears.
He found that words presented early in the list or at the end of the list were more often recalled and the words presented in the middle were more often forgotten. This suggests that words at the start of the list were put in to the long term memory (LTM), primary effect, as the person had time to rehearse the words, and words at the end of the list were put in to the short term memory (STM), recency effect, words in the middle of the list were there for too long to be retained in the STM but not long enough to be retained in the LTM. Murdock argues that participants remember primary and recency information from two separate stores (LTM and STM) therefore supporting the MSM. Studies in to Korsakov’s syndrome also support the MSM as sufferers have very limited STM, but very good LTM, suggesting that they are separate stores of information. Many of the studies that support the MSM use laboratory experiments which are known for their lack of ecological validity.
The incongruent stimulus was numerical value and numerosity where processing took longer in the condition. Participants were asked to read aloud four lists (a congruent, reading, counting, and incongruent) and be recorded in time how fast they could complete each task. The independent variables in our research included congruency of content and counting while the dependent variables were the reaction times. The results suggested that indeed the longer reaction times were that of the incongruent condition. This suggests that due to numerosity and numeral values speed of processing is slowed down.
To those that agree with the theory of cognitivism, they are more concerned with the inner processes and less concerned with outward behavior. These people feel that the importance of learning how a person processes information is more important than experience. Accordingly, it can be said that ten people given the same experience, would each learn from it in very different ways. This means that each individual would develop totally disparate behaviors because each has disparate ways of thinking about things (TEXT). The theory of cognitivism was developed as a tool for the rival theory – behaviorism.