Sensory memory lasts for only a short amount of time before it goes to the short-term memory, whilst the short term memory last for about 30 seconds. The capacity of short-term memory is, according to Miller (1956) is 7 +/- 2. This is called Miller’s magic number seven. Sensory memory comes in echoic and iconic senses, and is relatively not encoded.
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model describes the way information is transferred to the long-term memory store. Outline how this happens.
Information is transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory by rehearsal. Rehearsal is basically repeating the information over and over again. Long term memory primarily makes use of semantic information, which adds meaning to the information.
A researcher reads out a list of 20 words, which are all similar in length and familiarity. Immediately afterwards, the researcher asks the participants to write down all the words that they can remember from the list, participants remember more words from the beginning and the end of the list than from the middle.
- Explain why the first few words are more likely to be remembered than the words from the middle of the list.
- Explain why the last few words are more likely to be remembered than the words from the middle of the list
The first few words are most likely to be remembered because of the primacy effect. This means that you have had chance to rehearse the first words in the list and that they have been taken to the long-term memory.
The last few words are more likely to be remembered because of the recency effect. This means that the words have gone from the sensory memory and into the short-term memory. They will be remembered for about 30 seconds and then forgotten, and the capacity dictates that 7+/-2 words can be remembered.
Describe and discuss the multistore model of memory. Refer to empirical evidence in your answer.
The multistore model is divided into three stores. Sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. Sensory memory detects the senses by the individual paying attention. The two types of information being used are echoic and iconic. After the information has been processed, it goes into the short-term memory where it is either remembered or sent to the long-term memory by the process of rehearsal or it is used and forgotten. At the long-term memory, the information is stored until death.
Evidence for this comes from Conrad (1964). He showed a list of printed letters to participants and asked them to write down as many as they could remember. He found that mistakes made tended to be a result of mixing up the sounds of the letters. This shows that a lot of the information in the STM is echoic.
Baddeley (1966), gave us evidence to show that LTM is best stored semantically. When asked to remember ten distinct words, and then ten with similar meanings, he found that after a long delay, participants recalled the more distinctive words, thus proving that LTM best gets information from semantic processes.
These two experiments show us that there are three clear stages to memory. However this model is far too simplistic to explain the whole memory system. There is a lot more evidence for LTM and STM. One such example is people with brain damage, such as Clive Wearing, whose brain was damaged by a viral infection. Wearing was unable to retain new memories. This shows that a part of his memory was damaged, and LTM cannot take place due to the damage. This is in support of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model. This model is too simplistic, and furthered by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). They cast doubts on Atkinson and Shiffrin’s theory, and belief that STM divided into four sections, rather than just one.