Multi Store Model

Question 1

Proposed by

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 2

Sensory register

Answer 2

• all environmental stimuli pass into it
• has different stores for different sensory information - modality specific. e.g., hearing stimuli goes into echoic store
• capacity is huge and lasts under a second
• information only passes past the SR if you pay attention to it

Question 3

short term memory

Answer 3

• coded acoustically
• lasts 18 seconds unless rehearsed
• capacity of 5-9 items
• information stays in STM if we rehearse it. if you rehearse it enough, it goes into LTM

Question 4

long term memory

Answer 4

• coded semantically
• lasts up to a lifetime
• capacity unlimited
• when recalling information from our LTM, it goes back into STM by retrieval

Question 5

evaluation of the MSM

Answer 5

research support - Baddeley, Jacobs, Petersons, Bahrick BUT many have aritifcial stimuli so may lack external validity

more than 1 STM store - Shallice and Warrington studied KF who had amnesia. his digit STM was poor when read aloud, but if he read them himself it was better. so MSM may be wrong in saying 1 store processes all types of info

elaborative rehearsal - prolonged rehearsal not needed for transfer to LTM - Craik and Watkins found type of rehearsal more important than amount: elaborative rehearsal (linking info to existing knowledge or thinking of meaning) needed for transfer. so MSM does not fully explain how transfer occurs