Topic 2 – Cognitive Psychology Lesson three – Multi-store model recap and evaluation

Re - cap Individually – draw the multi-store model of memory Once complete – share with the person next to you

Homework - feedback

Long term memory Supporting study Aitkinson and Shriffin (1965) Quizzing students on capital cities of US states. Could not remember the Capital of Washington Later when he recalled the capital of Oregon (Salem) he immediately remembered that the capital of Washington is Olympia. Learned the capitals together Associated pair, semantically or temporally, related.

Evaluating a theory Supporting evidence – must say how Criticise supporting evidence – methodology only Opposing theories – without describing the whole theory Application to real life Reductionism – explain to the examiner how it is reductionist

5 minute task - pairs List as many evaluation points as you can

Evaluation Support: Henry Molaison (HM) (Milner et al. 1968) His sematic memory was in tact (taking and recalling skills he knew before the surgery) he could also form short term memories. Severe impairment to his long term memory For years he reported that the year was 1953 and that he was 27 years old. How does this support MSM? However….. “like waking from a dream…every day is alone in itself”.

Evaluation Further support comes from the case study of Clive Wearing Suffered brain damage due to encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) Suffered long term memory impairment. Lacks the ability to form new memories and cannot recall aspects of his past memories Short-term memory remained unaffected. However…..

K.F Shallice & Warrington (1970) K.F. – Victim of a motorbike accident Damage to short term memory KF showed very poor digit span (usually less than 2 items) He showed good performance on tasks that seemed to indicate an intact long-term store. For example, he was still able to store new information. In fact he could learn a 10 word sequence in fewer trials than normal controls and still retained seven of the 10 items some months later. How does this go against the MSM of memory?

Evaluation of case studies The subjects are case studies? What are the limitations associated with case studies? The case studies can also be used to highlight the over simplistic view of long-term memory. E.g. Clive Wearing was able to play the piano and conduct an orchestra Suggests that long-term memory is not one single store but that perhaps we have different long- term stores for procedural memory of practices skills and other stores for factual information and autobiographical events. Ethical issues with case studies?

Evaluation of studies i.e. Sperling and Peterson and Peterson? Artificial tasks are used and therefore might not be valid. E.g. rehearsal of letters or numbers from a visual array Is this similar to day to day memories forming?

Alternative explanations/theories MSM – can be seen as over simplistic Dual task – experiments Not explained by MSM Baddeley and Hitch (1974) propose a different model – much more complex Short term memory – three components

Reductionism What is this…..? Think back to your lessons with Miss Shefik Why can we argue that this model is reductionist?

SCOAR – evaluation of a model/theory Supporting evidence (2 studies and 2 case studies) Criticise supporting evidence Opposing theories Application to real life Reductionist

Practice Questions for revision

Explain the difference between the three stores in the multi-store model (6 marks)

Evaluate the multi-store model as an explanation of how we remember (12 marks)

Two strengths and two weaknesses of the multi- store model of memory (8) P C One mark for identifying the strength/weakness and one mark for an explanation i.e. Strength P C