Memory

Sensory memory - It comes from one of your 5 senses and can only be remembered for a fraction of a second because your brain is not able to store it. 

STM - Immediate events, it lasts very short and will dissapear unless they are rehearsed. short term memory has limited duration and capacity. sometimes referred to as working memory model. 

Capacity - Amount of information that can be stored. 

Encoding - The way information is changed so it can be stored in the memory. information enters the brain by the sense and is stored in various forms depending on how its encoding. 

LTM                         STM

Encoding              Mainly semantic            Mainly acoustic  (Baddely)

Capacity               Unlimited                      Limited 7+/ -2     (Miller)

Duration                Unlimited                      Limited 20 secounds  (Peterson)

Decay - Dissapear, forget

Displacement - Another things happens. Memory is displaced by something else going on.

Interference - gone into you LTM and cant remember everything.

Maintance rehearsal - Always goes back to your STM. Example remember pin code, say it over and over again to keep in your memory. doesnt go into your long term memory.

Elabrotaive rehearsal - putting more effort in to remembering. will got to your LTM.  

Multi store model

• Made by Atkinson and shiffrin (1958)
• Designed to illustrate the storage components of the memory system 
• model works by a stimulus input which comes from one of you 5 senses
• goes to yur sensory memory, if not remembered will decay.
• if you give it more attention will got to your STM, could be displaced or decayed at ths stage.
• suggests that information in STM is in a fragile state.
• if rehearsed for a period of time then goes to your LTM. 
• Supprtig research for STM shown to us by Beardsley ( 1997) demonstrated that pre-frontal cortex is active when an individual was doing a task in STM.
• Supporting research for LTM Squirre et al (1992) illustrated to us that the hippocampus is active when LTM is engaged. Evidence to support this is case study of HM. 

• HM had an operation to remove his hippocampus
•  suffered from epilepsy. 
• After operation he could not form any long term memories & could remember things that happened before the operation but not after.
• suggests hippocampus is a gateway through which memories must pass before permanent storage. 

A02

• Lacks intenal validity
• Dont know the basline of the patient
• cant generalise

Stengths

• First model ever to be made
• model gives us an account of how memory works and there is evidence to support this

Weakness

• Model is over simplified account of memory.
• Memory far to complicated to be explained in a few stages.

Flash bulb memory also critises the model. Example 9/11 memory has gone to our sensory memory and straight to our LTM without any elabrotive rehearsal. suggests the model is not always correct. 

Central Executive - Allocates attention to different inputs and monitoring the operation of the other 2 components. 

Phonological loop - It has 2 sub components, the articulatory control system where information is rehearsed subvocally, and the phonological store, where speech input is held for a brief duration.

Visuo spatial sketchpad - deals with visual information coming either direct from the sense or retrieved from LTM.

Episodic buffer - Acts as a store for visual and acoustic data. 

Supporting research shown by Bunge et al (2000) found that some parts of the brain active when reading or recalling, buut more active when participants has to perform 2 attentional tasks at the same time than when performed sequentially. (Evidence for central executive)

However study done on brain damged people, cant make before or after comparison. lacks internal validity.