M: Lesson 3: Multi Store Model of Memory

Question 1

Who was the Multi Store model of memory developed by?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 2

What is the purpose of the multi store model?

Answer 2

Attempts to explain how information flows from one memory store to another.

Question 3

What does the multi store model say about SR?

Answer 3

• Environmental stimuli received through the 5 senses enter the SR. It has a separate sensory store for each input e.g iconic store for visual, echoic store for auditory etc.
• Capacity is unlimited but duration is only 250 milliseconds
• A small fraction of information is attended to and selected for further processing in STM. If not attended to, sensory information is lost due to decay

Question 4

What does the multi store memory say about STM?

Answer 4

• If information in the SR is attended to, it is acoustically coded into STM
• STM is a temporary store for information received from the SR before it is transmitted to LTM.
• Information may be recalled at this point and then forgotten before it is transferred to LTM
• STM has a limited capacity of 7 (+/- 2) pieces of information so it can be displaced by new incoming information.
• STM also has short duration of 18-30 seconds. This means that without rehearsal, information will decay very quickly
• Information can be kept in STM using maintenance rehearsal (repeating information over and over again), or elaborative rehearsal (where information is organised in a meaningful way), then the information may be transferred to LTM for more permanent storage.

Question 5

What does the multi-store model of memory say about LTM?

Answer 5

• If information is sufficiently rehearsed in STM, then it is semantically coded into LTM. This is a permanent store holding vast amounts of information for long periods of time.
• The capacity of LTM is potentially infinite and there is no way of accurately measuring it. The duration of LTM could potentially be a lifetime
• When information in LTM is needed, it is retrieved by STM and tgen recalled.
• Sometimes we cannot access information from LTM because of retrieval failure and so we may need retrieval cues to help us access i