Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory

Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory The first modern behavioural model to travel down memory lane, and one whose concept of primary memory has served as a departure point for several modern theories, was developed by Waugh and Norman (c1965). the thought is dualistic; primary memory (PM), a short-term storage system, is conceptualised as being independent of secondary memory (SM), a longer-term storage system. Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory Waugh and Norman borrowed freely from William James’s dichotomy of primary and secondary memory and illustrated their theory by means of the model shown in Figure below, which encouraged the memory metaphor of boxes within the top that soon proliferated within the literature of psychology . What Waugh and Norman did that James never attempted was to quantify properties of primary memory.

This short-term storage system was taken to possess very limited capacity, so as that loss of knowledge from it had been postulated to occur not as a simple function of some time but (once the storage capacity was exhausted) by displacement of old items by new ones. PM could be conceptualised as a storage compartment very almost like a file , during which information is stored during a slot or, if all the slots are filled, displaces an item occupying one of the slots.

Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory Waugh and Norman traced the fate of things in PM (primary memory) by using lists of sixteen digits, that were read to subjects at the speed of 1 digit per second or four digits per second. the aim of presenting digits every second or quarter second was to figure out whether forgetting was a function of decay (presumed to be due to time) or interference in PM.

If forgetting was a function of decay, then less recall could be expected with the slower rate (one digit per second); if forgetting was a function of interference in PM, then no difference in recall could be expected according to the presentation rate. the same amount of knowledge is presented at both presentation rates, which, by Waugh and Norman’s logic, allows the same time for decay to occur. Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory it would be argued that even at one item per second, subjects would allow extra experimental information to enter their PM, but later experimentation (Norman, 1966) during which presentation rates varied from one to 10 digits (for a given period), yielded data consistent with a rate of forgetting expected from the primary model.

The rate of forgetting for the two presentation rates is analogous . Interference seems to be a greater factor than decay in forgetting in PM.

Waugh and Norman’s system makes sense . Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory PM holds verbal information and is out there for verbatim recall; this is often often true in our ordinary conversation. we'll recall that last a neighborhood of a sentence we've just heard with complete accuracy, albeit we were barely taking note of what was said. Describe Waugh and Norman’s model of memory However, to recall the same information sometime later is impossible unless we rehearse it, which makes it available through SM.

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