The Multi-Store Model Flashcards
What does the multicore memory suggest?
But memories made up of three stores linked by processing.
What is the main hypothesis of the MSM?
That the stores are separate and can function independent from one another.
What are the three types of memory stores according to the MSM?
Sensory memory followed by the STM and then followed by the LTM.
Any stimulus you come across must pass through at least one of these stores in this sequence.
How do stimulus enter your sensory register?
They enter from the environment
How does memory enter the short term memory from the sensory register?
Through attention to the stimulus
How does information from the short term memory enter long-term memory?
Through prolonged rehearsal and elaborate consolidation
How does long-term memory go back into the short-term memory?
Retrieval
What is the sensory register?
This very briefly stores all of the sensory information from the environment from every stimulus you come across.
The two main ways at codes is ionic (visually) and echoic (acoustically) but there were other sensory stores for your other senses.
It has a high capacity e.g there are over 100 million cells in the eyes.
The duration is very brief, approximately half a second, which is why attention is needed for it to move into the STM
What is the STM?
Information is passed to the STM if attention is paid to it.
The capacity is very limited (seven+ or -2)
Chunking is possible
We can keep information in the STM as long as it’s rehearsed. Without rehearsal, it is around 18 seconds.
It is coded for acoustically
What is the LTM?
This is the potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time.
The duration is believed to be very very long and can last a lifetime.
The capacity is infinite
Information is coded semantically
Although it remains for a very long time, it needs to be transferred back into the STM by retrieval
What is the strength of the MSM?
Research support through the case study of HM:
After a surgery to treat his severe epilepsy, his LTM was damaged badly. He couldn’t remember events that happened just hours or minutes earlier.
But his STM was much less badly affected, his digit span was almost normal.
This shows that there are two separate and independent memory stores.
What are the limitations of the MSM?
Evidence suggests that the STM is not a unitary store, and there are several stores within. Case of KF supports this, after he suffered brain damage from a head injury it was found that he forgot auditory information far greater than visual information information in his STM.
There is also evidence that LTM is not a single store as we retain such different kinds of information such as semantic, episodic and procedural information suggesting that MSM is an oversimplified theory.
