MENTAL PROCESSES RECAP

?? Involves a decision making process, whereby

we use the information that is presented to come
up with a response. Perception

?? is the process that involves communication and

our understanding of naming objects and the Memory
world around us.

?? is the process by which we take in and make Thinking

sense of information from the environment.

Language
?? is a focused concentration of mental activity.

?? is the process by which we retain and recall Attention

information.
MEMORY
MODELS OF MEMORY
THE MULTI-STORE
MODEL OF MEMORY
(ATKINSON AND SHIFFRIN)
OUTCOMES
• Explain the multi-store model of memory and
draw a diagram

• Demonstrate the difference between the stores

• Use research to explain the distinctions between

the stores
 Encoding
Capacity
Duration
KEY TERMS: Decay / Displacement
• Which one of these relates to the way that information is
formatted?

• Which one of these relates to the length of time that information is

stored?

• Which one of these relates to the way that information is forgotten?

• Which one of these relates to the amount of information that is

processed?
MULTI-STORE MODEL

• What are the three memory stores?

• What sets them apart from one another?

• How is information transferred between the

stores?
SENSORY MEMORY
• Duration: ½ to 2 seconds
• Capacity: 9-12 items (actually unknown)

• Different types:
• Echoic
• Iconic

• George Sperling tested sensory memory (iconic

memory) and suggested the capacity was around 9-12
items, however it is hard to know for sure.
INVESTIGATING SHORT TERM
MEMORY

The Digit-Span Test

• Pair up
• Follow the instructions on the sheet
• Record your digit span and reverse digit span

• What could this test be investigating?

SHORT-TERM MEMORY
• Duration: 30 seconds
• Capacity: 7+/-2 chunks

• If sensory information is attended to it is stored

in our short-term memory.

• How did Miller find out about the capacity of

STM?
 
LONG-TERM MEMORY
• Duration: Potentially a life-time –
Bahrick et al.
• Capacity: Unlimited

• If rehearsed information is transferred

from our short-term memory into our
long-term memory

• Information is retrieved from the LTM to

the STM.
 TASK! YOU NEED TO REPLICATE ONE OF THESE
STUDIES AND PRODUCE A SHORT HANDOUT FOR THE
REST OF THE CLASS DESCRIBING THE RESEARCH,
APPLYING THE RESEARCH TO THE MSM, AND
EVALUATING IT.

Duration of STM: Peterson and Peterson (1959) – duration of

STM

Encoding in STM and LTM: Baddeley (1966) – type of coding

used in STM and LTM (2 studies)
EVIDENCE FOR DISTINCT MEMORY
STORES
• Murdoch (1962) studied the serial position effect

• The first and last things presented are best remembered

– the primacy and recency effect

• Why does this show that there are separate memory

stores?
• How could you get rid of the primacy or recency effect?
SO WHAT?!

• How is the information about the serial position effect

relevant for you?
• Why is it important to know which information we will
remember best?
THESE ARE ALL EXPERIMENTS…

• How else can we investigate memory and the multi-

store model?
CASE STUDIES SHOWING DISTINCT
MEMORY STORES
• Milner / Corkin – Case study of HM

• Shallice and Warrington – Case of KF

• Blakemore – Case of Clive Wearing

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER CASES?

• What do the cases of KF and Clive Wearing tell us?

• Find out what happened to KF and what it tells us about

the MSM.

• Homework – watch the Clive Wearing documentary.

What does it tell us?
IS THE MODEL COMPLEX ENOUGH?

Theories of more than one LTM:

• Cohen and Squire (1980) – declarative and procedural
knowledge
• Tulving – Episodic and semantic memory

Is there more than one STM?

• Case study of KF
HM TASK
• In your groups of 5 or 6, 3 of you will take the roles of HM,
the researcher, and the narrator

• After you have ‘performed’ the scene, the other 2 or 3

people in the group will explain what this interview tells us
about HM’s memory and the MSM

• Overall, what have we learned from this case?