The first section is the sensory memory. Information is detected by the sense organs (sight and hearing). Information can be picked up by sight which is called iconic store, and information picked up from sound is called echoic store. Sensory memories only last just long enough for them to be transferred into the short term memory. The duration of this section is ¼ to ½ a second.
This is not explained in the model of Atkinson and Shiffrin. Also it suggests we have to rehearse everything for it to be stored in long term memory when in real life we do not rehearse everything in order for it to be remembered. This means this could only apply to experimental conditions. Furthermore it is oversimplistic as it doesn’t describe in detail and we know that there are more long term memory stores than just the one. However, they were the first people to attempt to make a model of the brain and they have shown a
The experiment produces the primary effect, where many words are recalled from the beginning of the list, and the recency effect, where many words are also recalled from the end of the list, but not so many from the middle. This study also shows that there are separate short term and long term memory stores since the primary effect occurs because the words at the beginning of the list have been rehearsed, and so are transferred into the long term memory store. However, whilst this is going on, less attention is paid to the middle words and they tend to be lost unless they have some special significance to the individual. The words at the end of the list are well recalled because they are still fresh in the memory system unless there is a distractor task which causes this information to be lost through interference, displacement, or decay. This evidence can be seen as reliable since it was scientific, conducted in a laboratory, and produced quantative data that makes it easy to summarise and compare with other data.
Short term memory (STM) is considered as incoming information from the sense which we attend to for only a short period of time. Only when we attend to the incoming sensory information and rehearse it does that information transfer from short term memory to long term memory. Short term memory is thought to be limited to 18-30 seconds, information that is not processed into long term memory is then lost through decay or displacement. The three main areas to memory are encoding, which is the way information is changed so it can be stored in memory. The information enters the brain via the senses including eyes and ears, it is then stored in various forms such as visual codes (pictures), acoustic form (sound based) or semantic form (how we attach meaning or experiences) Encoding
The research suggests that capacity of short term memory could only be enlarged by grouping items together known as chunking. By chunking information, we are more likely able to remember it whether in single or combined forms which is why it’s known as the magical number seven plus or minus two. However, the experiment could also be criticised in the sense that there could have been experimenter bias and demand characteristics. It also isn’t ecologically valid since people don’t have to memorise random letter and numbers all the time. Nevertheless,
Also it may be possible that the information didn’t decay but displaced by the numbers that were being used to count down. We cannot be sure on Peterson & Peterson’s study as it does not give us clear evidence for decay and shows elements for supporting displacement theory. The second theory is displacement which explains that we forget because of a new set of information that physically overwrites the older set of information. This happens because the STM is limited
What are the characteristics of primary memory? Basically the Primary memory is what is more often called short-term memory. Primary memory is the area of the brain where the information we have gathers is temporarily processed as given coding that human minds can understand, manipulated, and sorted into items that will be forgotten or passed on to secondary memory. The Primary Memory is only able to hold between 5 and 9 units depending on the type of item being processed and individual unique mind and abilities. Willingham states that primary memory is limited to 2 seconds of acoustic code and four visuospatial objects.
Wednesday 23rd April 2014 Psychology Goal – to describe and evaluate MSM PSY1 Revision – Cognitive Psychology Memory January 2011 1- use your knowledge of the multi store model to explain why Jamie would not remember the doctors number (4 marks) Mark scheme – application of the msm, REHEARSAL (need to keep information in the STM or transfer it to the LTM) the conversation with his friend will prevent Jamie from rehearsing the phone number. Reference to the limited capacity and duration of stm would also be relevant Answer – Due to the conversation Jamie was having with his friend he was prevented from rehearsing the
Outline and Evaluate the Working Memory Model The working memory model (WM) explains why we can do two different tasks at the same time, but not two similar tasks. It replaced the idea of a unitary short term memory (STM) In the working memory model information is passed from STM to the central executive and this decides if the information is visual or auditaory. Information is then passed to the corrersponding store. The central executive is a key componant of the WM. It directs information from STM to one of the "slave systems" It also has a very limited capacity and duration so can't attend to too many things at once.
Three stages of memory The three stages of memory consist of sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory. Each stage has specific functions in how its stores memory, for how long, and when that memory is called upon. Sensory memory lasts about 1 - 2 seconds and is the immediate perception of stimuli in the environment. You can either dismiss that perception, or transfer it to short-term memory or perhaps long-term memory. Sensory memory is often divided into iconic (visual input) and echoic (sound) memory.