Cognitive psychology- Theories and applied studies
MULTISTORE MODEL- Atkinson and Shiffrin
A01
o Sensory memory – brief, modality specific, limited duration, lost by lack of attention
o STM- capacity 7±2 , duration 15-30 seconds without rehearsal, increase by chunking,
encodes acoustically, lost by displacement of info, trace decay, interference, or lack of
rehearsal
o LTM- infinite capacity and duration, encodes semantically, lost by trace decay or
interference
o Linear, unitary stores
A03
- Sperling1960- grid of letters, asked to recall, couldn’t recall all but aware there were more
letters proving sensory memory
- Millers digit span test- could recall 7±2 in STM
- Brown Peterson- counted backwards in 3s to prevent rehearsal proves STM duration 15-30
seconds and loss of information via displacement
- Bahrick- could recall names from school from yearbooks 48 years later, proves LTM infinite
capacity
- Mirror drawing tasks- HM lost STM yet improved at mirror drawing task suggesting different
types of LTM stores (procedural memory) MSM is overly simplified
- Case studies- KF motorbike accident- 2 numbers in digit span test, proves separate stores as
STM impaired yet LTM fine
- Brain scanning- sperate parts of the brain active during different memory tests
A03CA
- Brandimonte et al- visualising improves STM recall suggests STM doesn’t just encode
acoustically also visually, MSM overly simplified
- Dual task activities- suggests multiple parts to STM and that memory doesn’t flow in a linear
way
- Flashbulb memories- powerful memories don’t require rehearsal to get into LTM
- Cant fully test if LTM has in infinite capacity, might have a limit
- Case studies- lack of reliability so hard to replicate and cannot compare to how they were
before the accident, brain can adapt due to plasticity
WORKING MEMORY MODEL- Baddeley and hitch
A01
o Central executive- decides which store to assign info to, processes small amounts of
information
o Episodic buffer- temporary memory store, holds 1 piece of information from STM/LTM
o Phonological loop- limited capacity, holds verbal information, ‘inner voice’- subvocalizes
information
o Visuo-spatial scratchpad- limited capacity, holds visual/ spatial info, inner scribe-
arrangement of items, visual cache- info of visual items like colour
MULTISTORE MODEL- Atkinson and Shiffrin
A01
o Sensory memory – brief, modality specific, limited duration, lost by lack of attention
o STM- capacity 7±2 , duration 15-30 seconds without rehearsal, increase by chunking,
encodes acoustically, lost by displacement of info, trace decay, interference, or lack of
rehearsal
o LTM- infinite capacity and duration, encodes semantically, lost by trace decay or
interference
o Linear, unitary stores
A03
- Sperling1960- grid of letters, asked to recall, couldn’t recall all but aware there were more
letters proving sensory memory
- Millers digit span test- could recall 7±2 in STM
- Brown Peterson- counted backwards in 3s to prevent rehearsal proves STM duration 15-30
seconds and loss of information via displacement
- Bahrick- could recall names from school from yearbooks 48 years later, proves LTM infinite
capacity
- Mirror drawing tasks- HM lost STM yet improved at mirror drawing task suggesting different
types of LTM stores (procedural memory) MSM is overly simplified
- Case studies- KF motorbike accident- 2 numbers in digit span test, proves separate stores as
STM impaired yet LTM fine
- Brain scanning- sperate parts of the brain active during different memory tests
A03CA
- Brandimonte et al- visualising improves STM recall suggests STM doesn’t just encode
acoustically also visually, MSM overly simplified
- Dual task activities- suggests multiple parts to STM and that memory doesn’t flow in a linear
way
- Flashbulb memories- powerful memories don’t require rehearsal to get into LTM
- Cant fully test if LTM has in infinite capacity, might have a limit
- Case studies- lack of reliability so hard to replicate and cannot compare to how they were
before the accident, brain can adapt due to plasticity
WORKING MEMORY MODEL- Baddeley and hitch
A01
o Central executive- decides which store to assign info to, processes small amounts of
information
o Episodic buffer- temporary memory store, holds 1 piece of information from STM/LTM
o Phonological loop- limited capacity, holds verbal information, ‘inner voice’- subvocalizes
information
o Visuo-spatial scratchpad- limited capacity, holds visual/ spatial info, inner scribe-
arrangement of items, visual cache- info of visual items like colour
