Multi Store Model

THE SENSORY STORE -

Evidence to support duration, collected by SPERLING;

-Participants saw grid of digits and letters for 50 milliseconds

-They then had to either write down all 12 items or, they were told that they will hear a tone and they must immediately write down a specific row of digits/letters

RESULTS: When asked to recall the whole thing, recall was poor [42%] than when asked to give one row [75%]

CONCLUSION: Information rapidly decays in the sensory store

THE SERIAL POSITION EFFECT

PRIMACY & RECENCY EFFECT - GLANZER AND CUNITZ

They found that when participants were asked to recall a list of around 20 words, they tend to remember the words at the beginning and end of the list.

WHY DOES THIS OCCUR?

-BECAUSE: primacy - the first words are best rehearsed and transferred to LTM.

Recency - the words are in STM when you start recalling the list.

Modern Techniques of scanning the brain can be used, such as PET scans.

BEARDSLEY has found that the prefrontal cortex is active when individuals are working on a STM TASK

whereas

SQUIRE et al found that the hippocampus is active when LTM is engaged

Areas of the brain involved in different kinds of memory, from their studies of brain damaged individuals.

Brain damaged man, HM by SCOVILLE & MILNER

-HM's brain damage was caused by an operation to remove the hippocampus from both sides of his brain, to reduce the epilepsy he had.

-HM's personality and intellect remained intact but he couldnt make new long term memories, although he could still remember things from before the operation

THIS SUGGESTS THAT: the hippocampus may function as a memory gateway through which new memories must pass before entering permanent storage in the brain.