The superior recall of items at the start of the list is called the primary effect, whilst the superior recall of the items at the end of the list is called the recency effect. This is good evidence for the multi-store model of memory because it shows the difference between the STM and the LTM. Rundus & Atkinson (1970) Rundus and Atkinson asked participants to rehearse out loud the list they were given (similar to Murdock's experiment). Tape recordings showed that words from the beginning of the list were more likely to be rehearsed than later ones. Because of the limited capacity of the STM, words from the middle of the list are thought to be lost completely or unavailable for recall.
Following a delay, first items are remembered ________________ (better/less well) than last items. 6. The best retrieval cues come from the associations formed at the time we ____________________ a memory. 7. In some cases, old information facilitates our learning of new information.
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 allows us to hold onto information long enough to use it. It deals with new data from the sensory memory and old information retrieved from the long term memory. It has duration of 18 seconds but this can be longer if the information is rehearsed, this is usually done acoustically. The short term memory has a limited capacity so information is often lost when new data comes in, this can be reduced by ‘chunking’ information (grouping info together). Long term memory is a more permanent store; we retrieve past experiences and knowledge from it.
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 participants were then quizzed to see how many critical words (words starting with s) they could remember. The data was then recorded on a table. The results show that the participants who did not have note paper remembered more critical words that those who had note paper. The conclusion that can be drawn from this experiment is that using mental repetition help people to remember more than when people take notes. Also, people tend to remember primacy words more than recency words.
“Outline and evaluate research into the duration, capacity, and encoding of information in short-term memory.” (12 Marks) Memory can be split into three different categories; sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. They all differ in three main ways, which are the duration, capacity, and the encoding of them. Short term has three key aspects. It has a limited capacity, limited duration and acoustically encoded. In short term memory, there is a limited capacity of much information can be held.
The research carried out allowed us to confirm that using the method of loci would improve and an individual’s recall. Introduction The Multi-Store Model (MSM) of Memory was proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 and claimed the memory system contained three structural components. Sensory memory (SM) stores information that is collected by our senses (sight, smell, hearing etc.). This information is received continually but the majority is ignored and only stored for a brief moment of time. At this point it is either disregarded or transferred to the short term memory (STM) store.
The multi-store model (MSM) of memory consists of three sections; SM (sensory memory), STM (short term memory), and LTM (long term memory). Information of the surroundings of an individual is moved from SM to STM when the information concerned is given attention. When information is in the STM maintenance rehearsal is required in order for the information to stay in the STM. If elaborative rehearsal is used on the information that is in the STM it is then transferred into the LTM, this is needed to remain in the memory without maintenance rehearsal and as a result of this the information is less likely to disappear from the memory. Research that was carried out by Sperling in 1960 gives evidence for the MSM, this is because the experiment that was carried out showed that when reporting a group of 12 items that were flashed on a screen for 50 milliseconds, it was 42% less accurate than reporting only one row, which was 75%.
Hitch and Baddley showed support for the WM by conducting an experiment where they gave participants two tasks to do at the same time. They found participants were slower completing these tasks when a task involved using both the central executive and the articulatory loop. This shows that you can't use two componants of the STM at the same time. Shallice and Warrington also showed support for the WM in the casestudy of a brain damage patient KF. The study showed that short term forgetting of auditory information was much greater than that of visual stimuli and his auditory