Multi-store Model Flashcards
Describe Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Multistore Model of Memory (Overview)
-Describes how information flows through sensory, short term and long term memory
-Memory is characterized as a flow of information through a system
-Based on how we store information we’ve processed
Describe how Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Multistore Model of Memory works
-Information is recieved from senses and hits our sensory buffer; only some info recieved can be processed as there is so much and our brain has limited processing capacity
-Sensory buffer picks up information and if we decide to pay attention to it then it can enter our STM
-STM has limited capacity, if there’s too much info then displacement occurs, follows first in, first out rule (info stored first will be thrown out first when capacity is reached)
-If we don’t fill our STM and rehearse the information it passes into our LTM where it is stored indefinitely until you need the information
Identify and describe 1 strength of the multi-store model
Distinguishes between STM and LTM in terms of capacity, duration, and encoding.
How does Glazner and Cunitz findings provide further evidence for the existence of seperate memory stores?
Glazner and Cunitz findings support the concept of seperate memory stores by showing that delayed recall interfered with STM store and caused the recency effect to disappear but had no effect on LTM store and left the primacy effect almost unaltered. That is, in the delayed recall group, the words have been displaced
What are some weaknesses of the multi-store model?
-Too simplistic and inflexible to explain the entire memory system
-It fails to consider strategies people use to remember things
-Flow through the system is interactive, not sequential as they claim
-Their suggestion that rote rehearsal is the only means of transfer from STM to LTM is criticized because people acquire new knowledge continually without using conscious rehearsal
