PSYC10006 Chap.3 Memory Components, Capacity and Transfer
Memory Components, Capacity and Transfer
The multi-store model is a box-and-arrow account in which information passes through three stores of increasing durability, moved along by processes that can each fail. Its value here is less that it is right than that it gives every later finding somewhere to attach.
This module measures two properties of the middle store and finds that the answer depends on what you load it with: about seven digits in a spoken span task, about four coloured squares in a visual one. It then turns to transfer. Chunking increases effective capacity by changing what counts as one item, using knowledge already held in long-term memory.
The serial position curve shows two effects that can be removed independently of one another. And a comparison of encoding depths undercuts the model's own account of how material reaches long-term memory: depth of processing predicts retention where amount of repetition does not.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The three stores, and the process that moves information across each boundary
- 02
Encoding, storage and retrieval, and the distinct failure each one explains
- 03
Why the diagram is not an anatomy, and the arrow that runs back from long-term memory
- 04
Measuring duration: why the retention interval has to be filled to measure anything
- 05
Decay against interference, and proactive against retroactive within one study
- 06
Verbal span, visual change detection, and why the two numbers do not need reconciling
- 07
Why what counts as an item is elastic, and what that does to a capacity estimate
- 08
Chunking as a contribution from long-term memory to a short-term task
- 09
The serial position curve, and the separate cause behind each end of it
- 10
Two manipulations that remove one effect and leave the other intact
- 11
Perceptual, phonemic and semantic encoding, and the result the comparison produces
- 12
Why incidental encoding and a surprise test are what make that comparison fair
Diagnose which memory process has failed
- 2Set up the diagnostic. The three processes fail in different circumstances: encoding fails when nothing was registered, storage fails over time or through interference, and retrieval fails when an intact memory is not being triggered.
- 2Case one is an encoding failure. Attention was elsewhere, so the name was never moved from sensory memory into short-term memory. There is no trace to fail to retrieve, which is why no amount of trying will produce it.
- 2Case three is a retrieval failure, and the cue is the evidence. The memory is intact, since a contextual cue produces it immediately; what was missing was something in the present triggering it. Case two is the least determinate, and the honest answer says so: with a long interval and much intervening experience, storage effects through decay or interference are the most likely account, but a retrieval failure cannot be excluded without testing a cue.
Key terms
- Maintenance rehearsal
- Mental repetition that keeps material alive in short-term memory. The multi-store model treats sustained rehearsal as the route into long-term memory, which is the claim the levels of processing comparison challenges.
- Proactive interference
- Forgetting in which earlier learned material intrudes on the recall of later material. The direction is named from the perspective of what is being recalled, which is why borrowed examples are so easy to invert.
- Chunking
- Grouping several items into one larger meaningful unit and holding the unit's name instead of its contents. It works only where long-term memory already contains the unit, so the same string is chunkable for one person and not another.
- Primacy effect
- Better recall of items early in a studied list, attributed to their receiving more rehearsal and reaching long-term memory. It is removed by preventing rehearsal during study, which leaves the other end of the curve intact.
- Deep encoding
- Engaging with what material means rather than with how it looks or sounds. It produces more durable memories and better retrieval than shallow encoding, in a comparison designed so neither group could out-rehearse the other.
Memory Components, Capacity and Transfer FAQ
Is short-term memory capacity seven items or four?
Both, for different material, and quoting either without naming what was being held is the error. A spoken digit span averages around seven digits; a visual change-detection task is accurate up to about four coloured squares. They measure different systems, which is the separation the working memory chapter is built on.
Why did the duration study fill the retention interval with counting?
Because a participant left alone with three letters will simply repeat them, so any delay would measure rehearsal rather than duration. Filling the interval with a task that occupies the same verbal machinery blocks rehearsal and lets the length of the delay be varied as the only manipulation.
How do I keep proactive and retroactive interference straight?
Take the prefixes literally. Pro means forward: older material reaching forward to disturb newer. Retro means backward: newer material reaching back to disturb older. Then identify which item the question wants recalled, because the label is assigned from the perspective of that item.
Why does the two-manipulation result matter more than the curve itself?
Because a shape on a graph is compatible with one cause, and two effects that can be switched off independently are not. Blocking rehearsal removes the early advantage and leaves the late one; a distractor before recall does the reverse. That independence is the argument for more than one store.
Assessment move
This module rewards learning structures rather than facts, so start by rebuilding the three-store diagram from memory including the arrow that runs back from long-term memory, since that arrow is what most reproductions leave out. Then separate duration from capacity deliberately: they are different questions with different tasks, and items often test whether you have kept them apart.
For the two capacity figures, practise saying each one with the material attached, because an unqualified number is the version that loses the mark. Drill the interference directions by deriving them from the prefixes rather than recalling an example.
Finally, be able to say in one sentence why incidental encoding and a surprise test were necessary in the depth comparison, since that is a question about design rather than about memory and it appears in the research methods stream in a different vocabulary.
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