The multi store model

Question 1

What does the multi store model describe?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi store model describes how information flows through the memory system.

• The model suggests that memory is made up of 3 stores linked by processing.
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Question 2

Describe the sensory register?

Answer 2

All stimulas from the environment eg. the sound of someone talking pass into the sensory register. This part of the memory comprises several registers (sensory memory stores) one for each of our fie senses.

• Coding is modality specific (depends on the sense). For example the store coding for visual information is iconic memory and the store coding acoustically ie. for sound is echoic memory.

There are other sensory stores for touch, taste and smell information.

Duration of material in the SR’s is very brief- less than half a second.

The SR’s have a very high capacity.
- Information passes further into the memory system only if you pay attention to it. ( so attention is the key process.)

Question 3

Describe the short- term memory?

Answer 3

• Information in short term memory is coded mainly acoustically and lasts about 18-30 seconds unless it is rehearsed, so STM is mostly a temporary store.
• STM is a limited capacity store because it can only contain a certain number of things before forgetting occurs.
• Capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 items of information ( magical number 7+ 2- though Cowans research suggests it might be more like 5 rather than 9.

Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat (rehearse) material to ourselves over and over again. WE can keep information in our STM’s as long as we rehearse it. It we rehearse it longer enough it will pass into our long term memory

Question 4

Describe long term memory?

Answer 4

• This is a permanent memory store information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time. We have already seen that LTMs are coded semantically.
• Psychologists believe that duration may be up to a life time. For example Bahrick et al found that many of their participants were able to recognise names and faces of their school classmates almost 50 years after graduating.
• The capacity of LTM is thought to be unlimited
• According to the MSM when we want to recall information from LTM, it has to be transferred back into STM by a process called retrieval.

Question 5

Why is research support a strength?

Answer 5

One strength of the MSM is suport from studies showing that STM and LTM are different.

For eample Bladdely found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs.
But we mix up words with similar meanings when we use are LTMs. Further support comes from the studies of capacity and duration .
These studies show that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores, as claimed by the MSM.

Question 6

What is a counterpoint for that?

Answer 6

Despite the apparent support in everyday life we form memories related to all sorts of useful things- peoples faces, their names, facts, places. But many of these studies that support MSM used none of these materials. Instead they used digits, letters (Jacobs) and sometimes words (Baddeley). They used consonant syllables that have no meaning (Peterson and Peterson)

This means that the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in everyday lives where we have to remember much more meaningful information.

Question 7

Why is more than one STM store be a limitation?

Answer 7

One limitation of the MSM is evidence of more than one STM
store.
Shallice and Warrington studied a client they referred to as KF who had a clinical memory disorder called amnesia.
KF’s STM digits was very poor when they were read out loud to him. But his recall was much better when he read to digits to himself.
Further studies of KF showed that could even be another short term store for non verbal sounds (noises)

This evidence suggests that the MSM is wrong in claiming that there is just one STM store processing different types of information ( visual, auditory)

Question 8

Why is elaborate rehearsal a limitation?

Answer 8

Another limitation of the MSM is that prolonged recall is not needed for transfer to LT.
According to the MSM what matters about rehearsal is the amount of it- the more you rehearse something te more likely it is to transfer to LTM. ( prolonged rehearsal)
But Craik and Watkins found that the type of rehearsal is more important than the amount.
Elaborative rehearsl is needed for long term storage. This occurs when you link information to your existing knwlegde or you thik about what it means. This means that information can e transferred to LTM without prolonged rehearsal.

This suggests that the MSM does not fully explain how long term storage is achieved