Multi-Store Model Flashcards
Explain the three compartments of the multi-store model and explain how information is lost from each
What is the duration of the sensory store?
0.1 - 0.4 of a second
What is the capacity of the short term memory?
5 - 9 items (7 +or- 2)
What is the duration of the short term memory?
18 - 20 seconds
What is the capacity and duration of the long term memory?
Limitless / Extremely large
How do we retrieve things from the long term memory?
Retrieval is triggered by stimuli such as a smell or sound.
What is the capacity?
How much information can be stored
What is encoding?
How information is changed in order to be stored (ie. something is changed into an image in order to be pictured later on)
What is duration?
The length of time which a piece of information can be stored for.
How is information encoded in the short term memory?
Mainly acoustically
How is information encoded in the long term memory?
Mainly semantically (by what is *means *to you)
Who created the model and when?
Atkinson and Shriffin (1968)
Give 3 strenghts of the model
- The role of rehearsel is representative of daily life
- It is supported by the primacy and recency effect
- Case study of the brain damaged H.M. also supports the Multistore Model of Memory because following the removal of his hippocampi, H.M. was unable to transfer information from short term memory to long term memory even though he could remember new information for a few seconds and he could also recall information from before his hippocampi were removed.
What is the primary and recency effect?
Where you can remember the start of a piece of info as it’s in your long term store and can remember the end as it’s still in your short term store.
Give 3 weaknesses of the model
- It is too generic/not specific enough, as some research suggests there is more than one type of short term store.
- Research behind it comes mainly from lab experiments which are not ecologically valid; this means the multi store model may not explain how we form memories in everyday life.
- Case studies of brain damaged participants such as Clive Wearing show that the Multistore Model is an oversimplification of how memory actually works. Clive was similar to H.M. in that he could not remember new information for more than a few seconds; however, he could learn new skills. This suggests that there is a separate long term memory for skills (Procedural Memory.)
