MEMORY

MEMORY

1. MULTISTORE MEMORY MODEL

   • LIMITATION: There is more than 1 STM store. Shallice + Warrington studied a client KF who had amnesia, KF's STM for digits was poorwhen read to him but much better when he read it himslef. Further studies of KF showed there can even be a STM for non verbal sounds. This suggests MSM is wrong in claiming there is more than one STM store for different types of info
   • STRENGTH: STM and LTM are different, Baddeley found we mix up words which sound familiar when using STM, but we mix up words which have similar MEANING using LTM. This shows these studies show STM +LTM are separate + independant memory stores, as claimed as MSM
     • COUNTERPOINT
       • Despite so much support, in everyday life we form memories eg faces, names, facts + places but many studies which support MSM use none of these materials, instead using digits + letters (Jacob) and words (Baddeley) or consonant syllables (Peterson + Peterson). This means MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in everyday life where we have to remember more meaningful things
   • LIMITATION : MSM's prolongued rehearsal is not needed for transfer to LTM. According to MSM, rehearsing something regularly so it goes into LTM is prolongued rehearsal, but Craik + Watkins found TYPE of rehearsal is more important than amount of it. Elaboative rehearsal is needed for LTM, linking new knowlegde to existing knowledge, so info can be transferred w/out PR, therefore MSM does not fully explain how LTS ia achieved.
   • Atkinson + Shiffrin based MSM on research evidence available at the time that showed STM + LTM to be single, independent memory stores, however there is a lot of research that LTM + STM are not single memory stores. Eg we have one LTM memory store for facts ab the world, how to play an instrument etc, combined w/ research ab types of STM and rehearsal and MSM is an oversimplified model of memory

2. CODING, CAPACITY + DURATION

   • CODING
     • STRENGTH: Baddeley's study identified a clear difference between 2 memory stores, STM using mostly acoustic coding + LTM using mostly semantic still stands and it led to the MSM
     • LIMITATION: It used artifical stimuli rather than meaningful material eg the word list had no personal meaning to the person so his findings may not tell us much about coding in real life, the findings have limited application
   • CAPACITY
     • LIMITATION: Miller's research may have overestimated STM capacity, Cowan reviewed ither research and concluded the capacity of STM is 4+- chunks, suggests that 5 items is more appropriate than 7
     • STRENTGH: Been replicated many times, it is very old so lacked adequate controls eg some participents' digit spans might have been underestimated bc of cofounding variables, but it has been replicated under controlled studies eg Bopp + Verhaeghen, therefore Jacobs' study is valid
   • DURATION
     • LIMITATION: Stimulus material in Peterson + Peterson's studies was artificial, the study isn't completely irrelavent but it does not reflect every day memory activities when we try to remeber meaningful things, therefore lacked external validity
     • STRENGTH: Bahrick's study has high external validity bc they researched ab meaningful memories, when studies for LTM used less meaningful stimuli, recal rates were lower, so Bahrick's findings reflect a more real estimate for duration of LTM

3. LONG TERM MEMORY

   • STRENGTH: Good evidence from case studies of Henry Molaison + Clive Wearing, episodic memory was severly impaired due to brain damage from infection + surgery but their semantic memories weren't affected, still understood meanings of words eg HM couldn't recall stroking a dog 30 mins ago but he knew what a dog was. Their procedural memories were also intact, still knew how to walk + speak, Clive a musican culd still musicate. Supports Tulving's view that there are different types of memory stores in LTM, when one store is damaged, it doesn't affect all of them.
     • COUNTERPOINT
       • Studying people with brain damage can help researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally, but clinical studies lack control of variables. Brain damage is unexpected so the researcher had no way of controlling what happened to the participent before or during it, they have no knowledge of the individual's memory before damage, therefore it is more dificult to to judge how bad it os, the lack of control limits what studies can say ab different types of LTM
   • LIMITATION: conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain. Buckner + Petersen reviewed evidence ab the location of semantic (left of prefrontal cortex) + episodic memory on the right, but other research says the other way round (Tulving). Challenges evidence to support types of memory bc of poor agreement ab location
   • STRENGTH: Understanding types of LTM allows pyschologists to help ppl w/ memory problems, as people age memory worsens, specifically episodic memory, recent memories are hard to remeber but not past episodic memories. Belleville made an intervention to improve EM in oldies, trained participents performed better on a test of EP than the control group, shows distinguishing types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.
   • STRENGTH: Tulving views EM as a 'specialised subcatagory' of SM - the same store. His research showed some ppl w/ amnesia have functioning SM but damaged EM but it can't happen the other way around. But Hodges + Patterson found ppl w/ alzheimer's could form new episodic memories but not SM's.

4. WORKING MEMORY MODEL

   • STRENGTH: Shallice + Warrington 's case study of KF after his brain injury, he had poor STM for audioty sounds but could process visual info easily, his recall of of letters and digits was better when seen visually not acoustic. His phonological loop was damaged but his VSS wasn't, this strongly supports the exsistance of searete visual + acoustic memory stores
     • COUNTERPOINT
       • However it is unlcear if KF had other cognitive damage which affected his memory. Injury caused by motorcycle accident and it may have affected his cognitive. Challeneges evidence that people with brain injuries may have affected many differen systems.
   • STRENGTH: studies of dual task performance support the separete exsistance of the VSS, when Baddeley's participents did a dual task, their performance on both was similar to when they carried it out separatly, but when both tasks were visual/verbal, performance significantly worsened bc both visual tasks compete for the same slave system unlike dual tasks where there is no competetition, proves there is a separate slave system for for visual input and verbal processing
   • LIMITATION: lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive, Baddeley said it is the most important but least understood component of the WMM. It needs to be more specified than "attention" eg some psychologists believe the CE may consist separate subcomponents, this challenges the integrity of the WMM
   • LIMITATION: These studies use tasks that are very unlike the tasks we perform in everyday life + they are carried out in very controlled settings so there is low validity and harder to generalise the findings

5. INTERFERENCE

   • STRENGTH: Evidence of intereferenc ein everyday life, Baddeley + Hitch asked rugby players to recall names of teams they plyed against, they all played one season but some missed games due to injury so it varied, players who played the most (most interference) had the poorest recall, this increases the validity of the theory
     • COUNTERPOINT
       • Interference can cause forgetting everyday but it's unusual bc the conditions for it to occur are rare, unlike the high control lab studies where they can create the conditions for it. This suggests forgetting may be bettere explained by other theories eg retrival faliure due to lack of cues
   • LIMITATION: Interference is temporary and can be overcome using cues, Tulving + Psotka gave participents lists of words in 2 catagories one list at a time, p did not know the catagories. Recall was 70% for the first list but became worse w/ more lists (PROACTIVE INTERFERENCE) But the words did not dissappear from the LTM, when given a cue recall test + told the names of the catagories, recall rose to 70%, shows intereferenc eis temporary loss of accessable material in the LTM, which isnt predicted by the intereferece theory
   • STRENGTH: Evidence of retrograde facilitation, Coenen + Luijterlaar gave participents a list of words they needed to recall the list whilst expereincing interference. Learning a list under the influence of diazepam and recall a week later was poor compared to a control group but when learned BEFORE the drug it was better than the placebo, the drug improved memory beforehand, Wixted suggests drugs prevent new info reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memory so it cannot interfere with info already stored.
   • Most studies supporting interference are lab based so researchers can control cofounding variables and find the clear link between inference and forgetting, BUT these studies use artificial materials and unrealistic procedures

6. RETRIVAL FAILURE

   • STRENGTH: