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The Atkinson-Shiffrin Multi-Store Model of Memory a Model of Memory Is Used to Represent, Describe and Explain Memory, Its Components and Processes

The Atkinson-Shiffrin Multi-Store Model of Memory a Model of Memory Is Used to Represent, Describe and Explain Memory, Its Components and Processes

Study Design Dot Point: Comparison of models for explaining human

The Atkinson-Shiffrin Multi-Store Model of Memory A model of memory is used to represent, describe and explain memory, its components and processes. Often diagrams are used to represent the movement of from one store to another. A Diagram of the Atkinson-Shifrin Model

You should be able to visualise this model in your visuo-spatial sketchpad and reproduce it at will! According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, memory has three components. Each stores, encodes and processes information in varying ways: • the sensory register Sensory information that is not attended to is lost for ever. Information attended to in this register passes to ... • the short-term store Holds limited information from the sensory register and information retrieved from the long-term store. Rehearsal allows in ... • the long-term store Permanently held information, in a store with essentially unlimited capacity Structural features of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

❖ This means the permanent, built-in or fixed features of memory

❖ Structural features include:

❖ the three different stores

❖ the function of each store - that is, the role it plays in human memory

❖ each component’s storage capacity

❖ the duration of that information is held Control features of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

❖ These vary from individual to individual - we can choose.

❖ For instance, you can choose what you pay to and therefore what passes from the sensory register to the short-term register

❖ Rehearsal is also under individual control; it determines how long information is held in the short-term store and whether it is passed on to the long-term store

❖ Retrieval is another control process. The method we use to access information is chosen by us. ❖ SUMMARY: The Atkinson-Shifrin Model is based on and supported by substantial research. It is still useful in memory, but it has been developed and challenged.

❖ There are now believed to be several sensory registers, possibly one for each .

❖ Short-term memory is now considered to be more complex than it was believed to be by Atkinson and Shriffrin. It is now seen as a number of separate, interacting components, not a single store.

❖ Long-term memory is no longer seen as one system, but as several sub-systems or stores - procedural (implicit), declarative (explicit), which includes episodic and semantic, etc. There is more focus now on how we not only retrieve but reconstruct them in the process. Criticisms of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

❖ The of the sequenced flow of informaon through sensory, STM and finally LTM is now believed to be more complex than proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin. Some believe this model was too straighorward and linear in its descripon of memory processes.

❖ There is now evidence for the concept of a separate sensory register for auditory informaon and for other . Limitations of Atkinson and Shifrin’s Concept of STM: ❖ techniques

have matched STM and other A PET scan showing the stores with physical locaons active of a person in the brain, demonstrang doing a STM task that STM is much more complex than Shiffrin and Atkinson realized.

❖ The Atkinson-Shiffrin model tended to overemphasise the See the discussion of Baddeley role of maintenance rehearsal and Hitch’s Model for the source and and overlook elaborave meaning of this scan. rehearsal. Limitations of Atkinson and Shifrin’s Concept of LTM: ❖ LTM is now believed to have different subsystems, such as episodic and procedural; each of these processes and stores different kinds of informaon.

❖ The role of is perhaps not emphasised adequately in this model.

❖ Informaon is not always simply retrieved from LTM and available for use exactly as it was originally stored; it has been shown that we reconstruct memories, that is, fuse a remembered event with newer informaon, changing the “memory” subtly in the process. More about

the first store of memory is fleeting in d u r a t i o n, but

h u g e in capacity Be careful not to confuse these two of duration and capacity! Duration versus Capacity • Duration means the length of time that the memory is held in a memory store • Capacity means how much can be held at any one time SENSORY MEMORY is brief or fleeting in duration but virtually unlimited in capacity

Iconic memory

Examples of sensory registers Sensory Memory holds an exact copy of sensory input has a register for each sense the two registers that have been most extensively researched are: ECHOIC

ICONIC ECHOIC MEMORY Brief auditory memory which lingers for 3-4 seconds

This is long enough for us to be able to link impressions of sound with the next or we hear

When we pay attention to the sounds (in order to transfer them to short-term memory) we are able to make sense of the sounds as a word or the as a sentence

Echoic memory thus makes possible

STORE FOR VISUAL SENSORY INFORMATION: Even more fleeting than echoic memory, this sensory register holds a vast amount of visual information for about a third of a second. Your text says - 0.2-0.4 of a second.

Sperling’s studies showed that people actually held all the information he projected on a screen, but lost it faster than they could report it. To overcome this difficulty, he devised a research method that demonstrated both the vastness and the briefness of this memory store. MOVING TO THE NEXT STAGE: Sensory memory is huge in capacity, but fleeting in duration. One advantage of this is that we can quickly filter out extraneous matter.

We don’t have to remember everything we see, hear and . In fact, it would be overwhelming if we did.

The only way we can keep, hold on to, preserve and hope to prolong sensory memories is through ATTENTION. Only the material we attend to passes into short-term memory. The usefulness of sensory memory in allowing us to filter out overwhelming detail...

How could you cope with life if you couldn’t filter out the extraneous details? Short-Term Memory temporary storage (18-20 seconds without rehearsal)

(Note that Atkinson and Shiffrin believed this period was 30 seconds in their model. See your text, p.304, under DURATION OF STM for clariication of this point.) limited capacity (7 plus or minus 2 bits or chunks) often encoded phonentically (according to sound) very sensitive to interference information is lost though decay (fading) or displacement (being pushed out by new information) The distressing shortcomings of STM For instance, as a youthful sales assistant in the shoe department at Myer, I would be asked by three different customers to get an 8 in the style Ecstasy by Jane Debster, a 7 in Cargo by Sandler and a 40 in 19203 by Stuart Weitzmann. Should I have been able to hold this amount of information in my STM? Yes! That’s actually only 6 pieces of information, chunked (or 9, if you count the brands). I would enter the rabbit burrows of the back of the department, muttering to myself (maintenance rehearsal, vocal or sub-vocal).

Then the manager would say, “Roslyn, can you work tomorrow from 5-9 and on Saturday from 1-5?”

“Sure I can!” I would cry. Then I would realise that I could no longer remember which size I needed to get in which shoe. I would have to go out and say to the customers:

“I’m sorry. I am an idiot and have forgotten what you asked for.” What I really said:

“Forgive me, although I had successfully chunked your request for shoes and was rehearsing it to keep it in my short-term memory until I found what you wanted, my maintenance rehearsal was interrupted and the information in my STM was consequently displaced. It’s not my fault, it’s a well-known psychological phenomenon.” Increasing the capacity of STM through Extending time in STM OR moving material into LTM:

Rehearsal: Any activity that allows information to be retained in memory and retrieved when required: may be verbal, vocal, non-verbal, sub-vocal, mental imagery.

Maintenance rehearsal: Simple, rote repetition of information. This needs to be attended to consciously – should not just be meaningless repetition.

Elaborative rehearsal: Involves linking new information in a meaningful way with information already stored in long-term memory. More active and more effective than maintenance rehearsal, this ensures that information is encoded well. Elaborative Rehearsal Any activity that adds meaning to information allows it to be encoded Using a diagram allows elaborative semantically, which is how LTM is rehearsal of a organised. concept.

For instance, -referencing is a form of elaborative rehearsal. You tie new information that you need to learn to something that is personal and meaningful to you, as I did with my shoe example.

Well-encoded information is easier to retrieve because there are many ways in which you can access it in your long-term memory. Elaborative Rehearsal More Elaborative Methods

Work out an , a rhyme, an acrostic, a story, to help you remember something. Think of examples, work out synonyms you could use to describe a concept, change a teacher’s description into your own wording, draw a concept map, a diagram, a picture or of symbols. The more you work on the information, the easier retrieval will be. On the neuronal level, there will be more connections between that will increase the efficiency of in your brain. Elaborative Rehearsal More Methods add meaning to information and therefore qualify as methods of elaboratively rehearsing material.

ROYGBIV, EGBDF, the Hippo Campus is on Memory Lane, a stalactite hangs on tight, a stalagmite might get there... Serial Position Effect

Serial position effect: Participants show better for items at the beginning and end of a list than in its middle.

Primacy effect: Items near the beginning of a list are recalled better than other items.

Recency effect: Items near the end are recalled better than other items. Serial Position Effect An Explanation of Serial Position Effect

! !

The early items are rehearsed more and ! therefore have a greater chance of being ! transferred to LTM.

The inal items displace the middle items in STM and are still there at the end of the task, allowing them to be recalled well too. This explanation is supported by... The effects of delayed recall on the graph are shown below.

When participants in a recall experiment of this kind are delayed in recalling for 30 seconds, the recency effect was lost. The 30 seconds extend beyond the duration of STM. ! Note the red line

The primacy effect remains. Baddeley and Hitch’s Model of Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch believed that the STM store in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model was too simplistic. They emphasised in their model of working memory that STM was not simply a passive store of information but a set of active processes that manipulate information. Baddeley and Hitch’s Model of Working Memory Baddeley and Hitch emphasised that STM Their model focused is working (i.e. on how working processing and memory supports manipulating), not just complex and storing and rehearsing. important cognitive activities, allowing us to visualise, store sounds, make decisions and coordinate tasks. General Information about Baddeley and Hitch’s Working Memory Model The central executive, phonological loop and visuo- spatial sketchpad are separate and can function relatively independently. But they also interact.

The phonological loop and visuo- spatial sketchpad are assumed to be sub-systems of working memory, whereas the central executive is assumed to be an “attentional controller”. VISUO-SPATIAL SKETCHPAD

This is one component of the Baddeley-Hitch model of working memory The visuo-spatial sketchpad stores and manipulates visual information This allows you to visualise a room and store in memory the location of objects in space Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad A mental workspace for storing and manipulating visual and spatial information For instance, the tasks to the right require you to visualise and rotate objects,, or to visualise a 3D object whilst looking at a 2D one. Both require the use of your visuo- spatial sketchpad. Can you think of some everyday tasks that require visualising and the location/manipulation of objects in space, using what Can you form a cube by cutting we might call your “’s eye”? out and folding this shape? Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad Example: When you look for something in your crowded locker, and can picture in your mind exactly where it is, you are using your visuo-spatial sketchpad. Some more uses for your Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad...

Finding or describing the location of a book or object in a crowded room

Going straight to that Picturing internally outfit you need for a the location of your party, even though friend in the your cupboard is a classroom mess Phonological Loop Another component of Baddeley and Hitch’s model Also called verbal working memory Te m p o r a r i l y stores a limited amount of verbal, speech-like information Verbal information is held in a sound-based or phonological form You hold the information through sub-vocal maintenance rehearsal; without it, you could only hold about 2 seconds’ worth of information From Baddeley, Your Memory: A User’s Guide (in library), p. 47

This PET scan uses the rate of oxygen consumption in the brain to reveal which areas are most strongly involved in which mental activities. This brain scan suggests that two areas are strongly activated by phonological short-term memory, one involved in storing the memory (A) and the other with rehearsal (B). (Paulesu et. al. 1993) Phonological Loop

Research evidence suggests that the phonological loop is important to , both in acquiring one’s native language as a child and in learning the vocabulary of a foreign language as an adult. A Word on Multi-Tasking The phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad both have limited storage capacity, but the capacities of each component are assumed to be independent of each other.

Reaching the limits of one component does not the capacity of the other component. Dual-task experiments have shown that people can do two tasks at once, maintaining For instance, last year I found that I could paint a information in one portrait of my daughter while listening to German sub-system whilst podcasts, but I couldn’t listen to German and type an email in English. What are some tasks you can do carrying out a task simultaneously that don’t interfere with others? What requiring the other. are some tasks you cannot do at the same time? Central Executive Another component of the Working Memory model

Monitors information and selects which information to pay most attention to

Shows the dynamic nature of working memory, as opposed to the “Short-Term Store” in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model

Though limited in storage capacity, the central executive is an active cognitive mechanism Central executive

Integrates information from other components and from LTM

Involved in all our , and decisions in normal waking Central Executive A final summary

According to Baddeley, the central executive controls the phonological loop and the visuo- spatial sketchpad, which he refers to as “slave systems”. It relates them to long-term memory.

Your text: “In everyday life, the central executive is involved in and goal- setting, helping you decide what to do next, or what not to do. When you change your mind about what to do, it will coordinate task switching, enabling you to change tasks smoothly while it controls the of information within and between the working memory and LTM systems.” (p.318) Episodic Buffer A late entry to the model

Baddeley that his model did not explain how working memory links with LTM.

Consequently, he added a fourth component in 2000, the episodic buffer. Episodic Buffer

A sub-system of working memory that enables the different components of working memory to interact with LTM.

Assumed to be a limited-capacity storage system that The episodic buffer is a bit like a mental holds about 4 chunks workbench for cognitive activities of information. Episodic Buffer

Baddeley called it this because he believed that this component can pull together separate streams of information from elsewhere in working memory and LTM and then combine them into scenes or episodes, like memories of a story or movie scene. Episodic Buffer Baddeley called it a “buffer” because it provides a temporary working space where information can be edited, reordered or reorganised in a meaningful way. See the example of how the four components of the working memory model might work in everyday life (p.319). How do all these components work together to allow you to manage a complex, muli-faceted task?

❖ You are cooking dinner.

❖ Your daughter or little sister spills her milk on the floor.

❖ The phone rings. It is your best friend, wanting to tell you urgently how she/he hates her boyfriend/girlfriend.

❖ What is your working memory doing? How are all the components involved? Strengths of Baddeley and Hitch’s model of working memory

❖ The model fits with our experience of everyday life.

❖ For instance, counting the number of windows in your house requires the visuo-spatial sketchpad; the sub-vocal counting requires the phonological loop; this would be coordinated by the central executive. Strengths of Baddeley and Hitch’s model of working memory

❖ A considerable amount of research evidence, including experimental evidence and even brain scans showing different parts of the brain at work, supports the components Baddeley and Hitch suggested.

❖ For instance, experiments in which participants successfully did dual tasks suggest that there is indeed a component focused on visual tasks and another focused on sound-based tasks. Concerns about the Baddeley-Hitch model

❖ It is difficult to test and verify the role of the central executive.

❖ It is difficult to quantify what is meant by “limited capacity”.

❖ The episodic buffer still requires more research and explanation. Craik and Lockhart’s Levels of Processing Theory ❖ Attention is vital to the of memories, but not all attention is created equal.

❖ You can pay attention in different ways or focus on different aspects of the stimulus input.

❖ According to Craik and Lockhart, different rates of occur because some methods of encoding create more durable mermory codes than others. Craik and Lockhart’s levels of processing theory Encoding: The process of converting information into a useable form or “code” so that it can enter and be stored in memory.

According to Craik and Lockhart, remembering depends on how information is encoded.

If you encode only by paying attention to basic features, you will encode at a shallow level. If you encode by making new associations, this information will be encoded at a deeper level, which results in better recall (Plotnik, p.249). An example... Shallow processing: It’s tall, grey, crooked. Physical properties detected.

Intermediate processing: It’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. Recognised and named.

Deep processing: Galileo reputedly used it for an experiment; tourists use it to create visual ; maybe the foundations are shallow... Meaningful associations created. The shallow, intermediate and deep processing student... (not a serious page) Shallow processing student: Notices what the Harrison and Richard are naturally in the deep teacher is wearing. Knows where friends are sitting. category (despite the Complains if teacher doesn’t write neatly. crocheted blanket) Intermediate processing student: Copies notes. Reads textbook. Writes definitions.

Deep processing student: Uses own wording when possible for notes. Reads beyond textbook. Thinks up and examples, designs diagrams, draws concept maps, asks probing questions (teacher struggles to answer), makes up questions and tries to answer them, encodes meaningfully; neural connections abound in his/her subtle brain... Your own example of variations in processing... Choose a topic, theme or experience and try to imagine how you could encode it in a shallow way, at an intermediate depth or deeply. Share your with the class. Here are some possibilities: a problem or formula in mathematics models of memory learning a poem or song remembering a group of people’s names remembering a text for English/English Literature Criticisms of the Model

It is difficult to quantify “depth of processing”. How can this be measured in a truly objective way?

Baddeley has pointed out that the logic of this theory might be considered circuitous, making it difficult to test. To test whether deep processing improves long-term memory encoding and retrieval, one could see whether a person has remembered something. If he has, then you could deduce that he had processed it deeply. Questions and Answers ONE

What role does attention play in Atkinson and Shiffrin’s theory? How has this been changed and developed by Baddeley and Hitch? Questions and Answers ONE The role of attention is more In the Atkinson and complex in the Baddeley and Shiffrin model, attention Hitch model, which focuses on is what ensures the working memory as a dynamic information in the fleeting version of STM. sensory register to get into The central executive is the the short-term store. “attentional controller” which determines what will be attended to and what will not. It directs its Once in the short-term “slaves” (the other components) to store, information that is focus on certain aspects of the attended to through incoming sensory information. maintenance rehearsal is This kind of attention is viewed as kept there through rehearsal more active, complex and multi- or encoded for storage in faceted than in the earlier model. LTM.

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