MSM: evaluation Lesson 11

Caroline Lucas is Brighton’s MP Episodic Procedural Frontal lobe facts practice limbic system cerebellum holiday romance temporal lobe Semantic skills based Hippocampus Basal ganglia driving a car Task: Sort out the statements into the different types of LTM as proposed by Tulving (1972)

Episodic holiday romance Hippocampus temporal lobe Frontal lobe Procedural driving a car skills based practice Basal ganglia limbic system cerebellum Semantic facts Caroline Lucas is Brighton’s MP temporal lobe

Here is a simple question, however, can you get both of the marks being awarded? In silence, you have just two minutes to answer this question. Do not use your notes, but aim to get both marks. What is meant by ‘procedural memory’? Give an example. (2 marks)

Who gets two marks? Who gets one mark, and who gets no marks? Morticia’s answer: Procedural memory is a type of long-term memory that stores actions and skills, such as riding a bike Luke’s answer: Procedural memory is a type of long-term memory that holds unlimited information and has knowledge of sequences, events, personal memories, lists and can be retrieved at a later date Vladimir’s answer: Procedural memory is a type of LTM which remembers how to do something, such as riding a bike

Morticia? Both marks. A clear definition and a relevant example. She answers the question set very well Luke? No marks. It is an incorrect definition and there is no example Vladimir? One mark. Describing procedural memory as ‘remembers how to do something’ is too vague to be credited. This shows the value of giving academic answers. His example is fine.

Model Answers for different types of memory activities

Activity 3: Answer the exam-type question: Use the tripartite division of long-term memory to evaluate the Multi-Store Model of Memory as proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) (3 marks) The Multi-store model (MSM) suggests that there is only one store for LTM, however, evidence has shown that there are at least three different types of LTM (I mark). Additionally, the evidence for this comes from biological research showing localisation differences in the brain when we recall different types of memories, for example, the hippocampus for forming new semantic and episodic memories (2 marks). Based on the strong scientific evidence, it is suggested that the original concept of LTM is oversimplified in the MSM, and should be replaced with the other concepts of episodic, semantic and procedural memory (3 marks).

Grounding – linking the findings of the study back to the explanation (Findings) Tulving (1989)…found in three of the six participants (including himself), that when they were thinking about historical facts blood flow increased at the back of his brain, whereas when they thought about childhood experiences blood flow increased at the front of his brain… (Grounding) The activation of the different areas of the brain when recalling facts or episodes suggests a biological basis to the different types of memory in LTM, which provides strong scientific evidence for the distinctions in LTM.

Outline and evaluate the multi-store model of memory. Essay question Outline and evaluate the multi-store model of memory. What research could you describe that supports the MSM? What research could you describe that challenges the MSM? Does the MSM fail to explain anything? Do these explanations offer any practical applications? How are they useful to us?

Marking standards… Show exam Q space and give out command words Give out copy of band descriptors

Task: read the evidence, work out the point and the explain/so what Evidence 1: Evidence: For example, Glanzer and Cunitz found that If participants were prevented from rehearsing a list of one syllable words for a short period by counting backwards in threes (the Brown-Peterson technique), they could remember the first words in the presentation, but not those presented in the middle or the end. If participants were allowed to recall immediately, they remembered both the words at the beginning and the end of the lists. This is known as the primacy-recency effect. This supports the MSM in that the words at the beginning of the list are rehearsed and therefore placed in LTM, but the words in the middle of the lists are quickly displaced by rehearsing the first words, however, the words at the end of the list are remembered because they are still fresh in STM. In contrast, If rehearsal is prevented at the end of the list, then the end words are neither in STM because of decay, or in LTM because displacement of counting backwards in threes. Explain/so what:

Evidence 2 Beardsley (1997) found that that the pre-frontal cortex is active when individuals are involved with tasks involving short-term memory. Squire et al, (1992) found that the hippocampus is active when long-term memory is engaged.

Evidence 3 Participants were asked questions about stimulus words at different processing ‘levels’. The words with questions that required a ‘shallow level’ of processing, for example, “is the word printed in capital letters” were less likely to be recalled that words with questions that required a ‘deep level’ of processing, for example, “Is the word a type of fruit.”

Evidence 4 In a case study, after a virus caused damage to the hippocampus, Clive wearing had very little long term memory for events that had happened in his life, but could still remember skills such as playing piano, reading music and writing in a diary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzU47i2xgw

Evidence 5 There is plenty of evidence from everyday life that information passes from STM to LTM without the need of maintenance rehearsal

Evidence 6 The model informs students that to pass information into a permanent store, they need to repeat the rehearsal of the information required. Just reading it once would not be considered effective rehearsal, according to the model