MEMORY

Memory is a critical part of all cognitive processes. Psychologists and other researchers came to
research more about memory and its processes in the late 1950s. Many cognitive psychologists
came up with a wide variety of definitions for memory. Some of the important definitions are;

Definitions; Memory is defined as an active system that receives information from the senses,
puts that information into a usable form, and organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves
the information from storage (Baddeley,1996, 2003 ).
Memory is the process of maintaining information over time (Matlin, 2005).
Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information
in the present (Sternberg, 1999).

Memory Process;
Memory has three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval

1. Encoding: the first process in the memory system is to get sensory information into
a form that the brain can use . This is called Encoding. Encoding is the set of mental
operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information
into a form that is usable in the brain's storage system.
2. Storage: Storage is the second memory stage or process in which we maintain
information over periods of time.
3. Retrieval (or recall, or recognition): The third process is the retrieval- getting
information that is stored. We must locate it and return it to our consciousness.

Models of memory; Atkinson and Shiffrin model of memory is one of the 4 important models of
memory.

ATKINSON AND SHIFFRIN MODEL OF MEMORY(1968)

During the 1960s psychologists became increasingly excited about information

processing approaches to memory. A number of different models of memory were proposed that
outlined separate memory stores for different kinds of memory. The Atkinson and Shiffrin model
of memory, which is also known as the Multistore Model or Modal Model of memory, provided
the first systematic account of the structures and processes that form the memory system. The
Atkinson and Shiffrin model of memory was proposed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
in 1968. According to this model Atkinson and Shiffrin explained that memory consists of 3
systems for storing information,they are sensory memory, short term memory and long term
memory. Each one of these systems must deal with the tasks of encoding information, storing it
and retrieving it when needed.
 (a) Sensory memory - a memory system that retains representations of sensory input for a
brief period of time. It is the point at which information enters the nervous system
through the sensory systems. Duration of sensory memory is 2seconds or less.
Information in sensory memory decays rapidly.
Types of sensory memory:
-Iconic memory- the type of sensory memory that is associated with the things that we
see(visual).
-Echoic memory- the type of sensory memory that is associated with sound and
hearing(auditory).
-Haptic memory-the type of sensory memory that is associated with a sense of touch.
-Olfactory memory- the type of sensory memory that is associated with a sense of smell.
-Gustatory memory-the type of sensory memory that is associated with a sense of taste.
Although touch, smell and taste can be represented in sensory memory, the cognitive
psychologist studied more about the iconic memory and echoic memory.

(b) Short-term memory(STM)- a memory system that holds a relatively small amount of
information for a brief period of time, usually 30 seconds or less. Capacity of stm is about
7+/-2 items( miller's magical number).Memories in short term memory are fragile. These
memories can be lost within 30 seconds unless they are somehow repeated. Atkinson and
Shiffrin proposed that verbal information in STM is encoded acoustically in terms of its
sounds.

The capacity of the short term memory can be increased by methods such as chunking and
rehearsal. Chunking- a process by which individual pieces of an information set are broken down
and then grouped together in a meaningful whole. Rehearsal- the process of repeating the
information over again and again.

(c) Long-term memory(LTM)- a memory system for the retention of large amounts of
information over long periods of time. It is this memory system that allows us to remember
events that happened a few hours ago, yesterday, last month or many years in the past. It also
allows us to remember factual information such as the capital of our state, the name of the
president etc. Information stored in long term memory is relatively permanent and not likely to
be lost. The capacity of long term memory is Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed that information in
LTM is encoded semantically in terms of meaning.
How does information move from one memory system to another?

Structural features of Atkinson and Shiffrin model; The figure shows that the stimuli from
the environment first enter sensory memory, from which the information passes on to the short
term memory. Stm contains only a small amount of information that we actively use. Verbal
information in stm is encoded acoustically in terms of its sound. Material finally passes from
short term memory to the long term memory. Information in ltm is encoded semantically in terms
of its meaning.

For example, when we hear the sentence- In Eastern China, a featured item on the menu is deep
fried scorpion. The words in the sentence would first be registered in the auditory store of the
sensory system. That information then could be lost or could be transferred to stm, or that
information could possibly be transferred from sensory memory to ltm. One option is that the
information can be lost from the short term memory or the other option is that it can pass on to
ltm. If that information reaches ltm, it may be lost but the loss of information from the long term
memory is less likely than in other two kinds of memory. The information in the ltm can pass
back into short term memory, when we want to actively work with that information.

Atkinson and Shiffrin say that information in sensory memory enters short term memory
through selective attention(the act of focusing on a particular information for a period of time
while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant information). Information in short term memory enters
long term memory through elaborative rehearsal(relating the meaning of new information to
already stored information). They also proposed that rehearsal is one important kind of control
processes.The control processes are strategies that people use flexibly and voluntarily, depending
upon the nature of the material and their own personal preferences.
 Criticism - Atkinson and shiffrin model of memory dominated memory research for
many years and now the influence was diminished. This is because after several researches the
cognitive psychologists consider sensory memory as a very brief storage process, and as a part of
perception.

Strengths of Atkinson and Shiffrin model;

-The model gives a clear cut idea about the structure of different storage systems. Hence
it was an early approach to the field of memory, it allows researchers to expand it further.
-It gives distinction about short term memory and long term memory.

Weakness
- The model is over-simplified in particular when it suggests that both stm and ltm function
in a uniform fashion.
- The process of stm and ltm are not simple , they are complicated.
- Information in stm and ltm are not stored as single files rather it has different areas for
different types of information.
- The model ignores factors such as motivation in account for the transfer of information
between the stm and ltm.

Research Evidence:

1. One of the prominent research studies that shows the existence of short term memory and
long term memory is conducted by Murdock(1962).

In his experiment Murdock presented 10 to 40 words in front of the group for a few seconds and
asked them to recall it. Results found that the majority of people recalled the words that are ath
ath first and last of the list, and words in the middle are forgotten. This effect is known as serial
position effect- it is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series the best
and the middle items the worst. This supports the existence of separate ltm and stm stores
because they observed a primacy and recency effect.
Primacy effect- tendency to recall the items in the first of a list.
Recency effect- tendency to recall the items at the end of a list.

Murdock concluded that the words early on the list were put into long term memory because the
person has time to rehearse the words, and the words from the end went into short term memory.
 2. Kintch and Buschke’s research
Kintch and buschke in 1969, conducted a research in which they asked people to learn 16
english words in order.they participants were asked to recall it. They proposed that the
words from the beginning of the list would be in ltm when recall was requested, because
so much time has passed since they were presented. On the other hand the most recent
items are recalled from the stm.
In the second part of the study Kintch and Buschke made two lists of words, each list
contain 12 words. The words in the first list are semantically similar pairs or pairs of
synonyms( words which are similar to each other in meaning), while the words in the list
2 are acoustically similar pairs or pairs of homonyms( words that are similar to each other
in sound). After the first list was presented the experimenters supplied one word from the
list and the participants were requested to supply the next word in the list. The
participants showed confusions between the words i.e. semantic confusions. The
experimenters noticed the no of times the participants made these confusions. They found
that items at the beginning of the list produced a greater number of semantic confusions
than items at the end of the list. This result suggested that items at the beginning of the
list which should be in ltm are coded in terms of meaning. From the presentation of the
second list they found that acoustic confusions were more likely at the end of the list than
at the beginning of the list. The result suggests that items at the end of the list which
should be in stm are coded in terms of their sound.

Case studies;

The neuroscience approach to memory has provided additional evidence for the atkinson
shiffrin model, especially through case studies of people with lesions.
The most dramatic case was that of HM. In an attempt to cure HMs serious epilepsy,
neurosurgeons removed portions of his temporal lobe and his hippocampus. The operation
successfully cured the epilepsy but it left him with serious memory loss. HM can accurately
recall events that occurred before his surgery and his short term memory is also normal.
However he cannot learn or retain any new information. He lacks the ability to transfer material
from stm to ltm. HM has normal stm but abnormal ltm.
Another case study was of a man known as KF who met with a motorcycle accident,
which damaged a portion of the left side of his cerebral cortex. His long term retention is normal
but his short term memory is severely limited.ie KF has abnormal stm and normal ltm.
These two case studies were often cited as the strong evidence for the distinction between
the two kinds of memory systems.
References;

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Chapter: Human memory: A proposed system and its
control processes. In Spence, K. W., & Spence, J. T. The psychology of learning and
motivation (Volume 2). New York: Academic Press. pp. 89–195.

Matlin, M. W. (1993). Cognition. Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Murdock, B. B. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 64(5), 482–488.

White, N. C. S. K. J. (2021). Psychology by Saundra K. Ciccarelli; J. Noland White

(2011–05-04) (3rd ed.). Pearson.