Composed of several stores-
eyes,ears,nose,fingers etc and the
corresponding areas of the brain
Constantly receiving info,
most receives no
attention and remains in
sensory store for very
brief period
If attention is focused on
one of the sensory stores,
transferred to STM
Short term memory
Information will 'decay'
disappear quickly if not
rehearsed
It will also disappear if new
info enters the STM pushing
out(displacing) the original
information
STM has limited capacity
7+-2 capacity
Long term memory
The more something is rehearsed
the more lasting the memory will be
Maintenance rehearsal- largely verbal
Unlimited capacity
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
Evidence for 3 separate stores
The sensory store
Sperling (1960)
Participants saw grid of letters+digits for 50 milliseconds, either
asked to write down all 12 or told they would hear a tone
immediately after and should write down that row
When asked to write down whole thing recall was poorer. (5 items recalled=42%)
When asked to give one row (3 items recalled=75%)
Shows info decays rapidly in sensory store
The serial position effect
Glanzer&Cunitz (1966)
Gave participants 20 words presented one
at a time and then asked to recall them
Tended to remember words from start of
the list (primacy effect) and from the end
of the list (recency effect) less good at
recalling words in middle
Primacy effect occurs, first words are best rehearsed and transferred to LTM.
Recency effect occurs because words are in STM when asked to recall the list
Areas of the brain associated with STM and LTM
Link STM and LTM to specific areas of the brain. Modern techniques of scanning the brain can
be used (PET scans and fMRI- used to detect brain tumours)- they take images of active brain
and enable us to see what region is active when a person is doing a particular task
Research found prefrontal cortex active when individuals working on STM task (Beardsly,1997).
Whereas hippocampus is active when LTM is engaged (Squire et al, 1992)
Evaluation
Strengths
Strong evidence of 3 different stores
Model does provide an account of memory in terms of
both structure+process
Clear predictions about
memory meaning
psychologists can conduct
studies to test it.
Limitations
Oversimplifies memory structures memory structures and processes
STM and LTM are not completely
separate stores
Rehearsal is not the
only way to transfer
from STM to LTM:
processing can also do
it (semantics)
Structures: STM+LTM are not unitary stores
Evidence for non-unitary STM came from case
study of KF- suffered brain damage resulted in
difficulty dealing with verbal info but normal ability to
process visual suggesting STM has more than one
store
LTM has more than one store
suggested by people with amnesia.
Spiers et al (2000) studied memory
in 147 patients with amnesia.
How separate are STM+LTM?
Logie (1999) pointed out STM relies on LTM
therefore cannot come 'first' as suggested