AO1: Information enters sensory register, where it is held at 5 of the senses (visual
inf. enters iconic memory, acoustic enters echoic). Sensory register is constantly
receiving information so its capacity is large, but the duration is small. If not paid
attention to sensory information is lost within milliseconds. If a person is focused on
one of the sensory stores the data transfers to STM. There it is mainly stored
acoustically (Baddeley 1966) As investigated by Miller, the capacity in STM is limited,
only 5-9 items or larger chunks of information. Memory traces in STM are very fragile
and if not rehearsed and subsequently transferred to LTM can be lost within 18-30s
due to decay or displacement. If material is rehearsed it is transferred semantically to
LTM where it can remain for a lifetime.
A03: However, research into duration, capacity lacks ecological validity. Laboratory
experiments, artificial tasks. + Peterson and Peterson believed that their findings
were due to decay of consonant syllables but it is also possible they were due to
displacement in STM. Participants (pps) counted down during the retention interval
which may have pushed out current information.
2. Supporting evidence for the notion of two stores.
Scoville and Milner(1957) - HM
Struggle to remember new information but his recall for things before the surgery was
really good. His personality and intellect remained intact but he couldn't from new
LTM, although the retrieval process was not impaired. Distinguishing LTM and STM
is as strength of the model. However, evidence from a brain damaged patient, a
unique case which cannot be generalised.
3. STM is not a unitary store.
Shallice and Warrington (1970) - better remembered digits that he read to himself
rather than when they read them out loud to him. The fact that his visual memory was
better than the auditory suggests there are at least two stores in the STM, one for
sounds and one for images. Therefore, MSM is oversimplified.
4. Maintenance rehearsal may not be the best way to remember.
Craik and Tulving discovered that things that are processed more deeply are more
memorable just because of the way they are processed. List of nouns, asked
whether the word was in capital letters or does the word fit into the sentence.
Remembered more words in the task involving deep processing. Maintenance
rehearsal is not always the key, the type of processing also plays a role.