The Multi-store Model Of Memory

Question 1

What is the multi-store model of memory? (MSM)

Answer 1

A representation of how memory works in terms of three stores: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. It also describes how information is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and how it is forgotten

Question 2

Who proposed the MSM and in what year?

Answer 2

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Question 3

What are the main ideas of the MSM?

Answer 3

• separate memory stores
• sensory register
• attention to stimuli in sensory register leads to transfer to STM
• STM
• maintenance rehearsal helps to transfer information from STM to LTM

Question 4

Explain how the MSM has separate stores

Answer 4

The MSM describes how information moves through the memory system- the model suggests that memory is made of of 3 stores linked by processing

Question 5

Briefly describe the sensory register

Answer 5

Duration = 1/4- 1/2 a second 
Capacity= very large 
Coding= each of the 5 senses 

A stimulus from the environment, for example, the sound of someone’s name will pass into the sensory registers with lots of sights, smells etc. So this part of memory is not one store, but several:
1- haptic store: retains physical senses of touch and internal muscle

2- iconic store: where visual stimuli are kept for a very short time period

3- echoic store: where auditory stimuli are kept briefly

Attention to items in sensory register leads to transfer to STM- if any information is not important enough to divert attention to then it decays or disappears

Question 6

Briefly describe the STM

Answer 6

• limited capacity store: 7+/-2 items on average
• information is encoded acoustically (as demonstrated by Baddeley 1966)
• the duration of STM lasts approximately 18-30 seconds if information is not rehearsed
• information will disappear from STM if new information enters STM, displacing the original information; this happens because STM has a limited capacity

Question 7

What helps to transfer information from the STM to LTM?

Answer 7

Maintenance rehearsal- maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat(rehearse) material to ourselves over and over again. We can keep information in STM for as long as we rehearse it. If we rehearse it long enough it passes into LTM

Question 8

Briefly describe LTM

Answer 8

• potentially unlimited in terms of capacity
• also potentially infinite in terms of duration
• coding tends to be in terms of the meaning I.e. semantic
• although material is stored in the LTM, when we want to recall it has to be transferred back to STM by a process called retrieval

Question 9

Draw a flow chart of the MSM

Answer 9

Look at camera roll

Question 10

What are the evaluation points for the MSM?

Answer 10

✅ the MSM is supported by research showing the the STM and LTM are different. For example, Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STM, but we tend to mix up worlds that have a similar meaning when we use our LTM. This therefore demonstrates that short-term memories are coded acoustically and long-term memories are coded semantically. This supports the MSM’s view that these two stores are separate and independent

❌ a weakness of the MSM is that evidence suggests there is more than one type of STM. For example, Patient KF was an amnesia studied patient. It was found that Patient KF’s STM for digits real aloud to him was very poor, but his recall was much better when he was able to read the digits himself. This is a problem for the MSM as it states that STM is a unitary store and so there is only one type of STM. However, the case of Patient KF suggests that there must be one short-term store to process acoustic information and another short-term store to process visual information

❌ MSM only includes one type of rehearsal- however, Craik and Watkins (1973) found that what really matters is the type of rehearsal. They found that there are two types of rehearsal: maintenance rehearsal and elaborate rehearsal. Maintenance rehearsal is the type described in the MSM and is simply repeating information over and over again but this does not transfer information into the LTM. Instead, elaborate rehearsal is needed for long-term storage; this occurs when you link information to your existing knowledge or you think about what it means. This is a serious limitation of the MSM because it is another research finding that cannot be explained by the model

❌ another limitation is that a lot of the research supporting the MSM used artificial material- for example, the study conducted by Peterson and Peterson (1959) to investigate the duration of STM using consonant syllables which had no meaning to the participants at all. However, in real life we form memories related to all sorts of useful things: people’s faces, their name, facts places and so on. This issue is a limitation for the MSM because it suggests the model lacks external validity. The model may reflect how memory works with meaningless stimuli material in a laboratory setting, but does not reflect how memory works in everyday situations

❌the MSM oversimplifies LTM- there is a lot of research evidence that LTM is not a unitary store. For example we have one long-term memory store for events about our lives (episodic), a separate one for how to ride a bike (procedural) and one for facts about the world (semantic). The MSM does not reflect these different types of LTM which is a problem for the model