Research Study for both STM and LTM

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Research Study for Both STM and LTM

AO1 or AO3

Research studies can either be knowledge or evaluation:

If you refer to the procedures and findings of a study, this shows knowledge and understanding.

If you comment on what the study shows, and what it supports/challenges about the particular theory in question, this shows evaluation.

Glanzer and Cunitz showed that when participants are presented with a listed of words, they tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list. This is the serial position effect.

This supports the existence of separate LTM an STM stores because they observed a primary and recency effect. Words early on in the list were put into long-term memory (primacy effect) because the person has more time to rehearse them, and words from the end went into short-term memory (recency effect).

Other compelling evidence to support the distinction between STM and LTM is the case of KF (Shallice and Warrington) who had been in a motorcycle accident where he had sustained brain damage as a result. His LTM seemed to be unaffected but he was only able to recall the last bit of information he had heard in his STM.