The Multi-store Model of Memory - Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 1

The Multi-store Model of Memory - Atkinson and Shiffrin

Answer 1

Memories are formed sequentially and information passes from 1 component to the next in a linear fashion.

Question 2

Process of the Multi-store Model of Memory

Question 3

Strength

Answer 3

point: there is research supporting the multi-store model of memory.

evidence: glanzer and cunitz asked participants to free recall word lists in any order. It was found that recall was much stronger for words at the start and at the end of the list.

justification: these results suggest that there are separate short and long term memory stores, with the words first heard entering LTM and being recalled (primary effect) and the words recently heard entering STM and being recalled (recency effect). The words in-between were stored in the STM but were displaced by later words.

implication: this research evidence helps to strengthen the theory of the multi-store model of memory henceforth increasing its validity.

Question 4

Strength

Answer 4

• Refer to Baddeley - coding - STM is encoded acoustically and LTM is encoded semantically.
• Refer to Jacobs - capacity - capacity of STM is very limited and can be improved by chunking.
• Refer to Peterson and Peterson - duration - unless it is maintained, information is held in STM for only a few seconds (18-30 seconds) before it disappears.
• Refer to Bahrick - duration - the duration of the LTM is very large, potentially limitless.

Question 5

Weakness

Answer 5

point: a limitation of research into the multi-store model of memory is that a lot of them conduct cognitive experiments which are highly artificial.

evidence: evidence supporting this comes from baddeley’s study, whereby a sample of 72 participants were split into 4 conditions: acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar. Participants were then asked to either recall the words straight away (testing STM recall) or 20 minutes later (testing LTM recall).

justification: this is an issue as although people do tend to memorise words from a list, the order is never really a factor, like it is in Baddeley’s study.

implication: this lowers the ecological validity of this study as well as many other studies supporting the notion of the multi-store model of memory as they cannot be generalisable to naturalistic, everyday situations.

(talk about mundane realism if possible)

Question 6

Weakness

Answer 6

point: the multi-store model of memory has been criticised for its over-simplified nature.

evidence: baddeley and hitch, who proposed the working memory model, suggested that the STM is comprised of three main components: the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. furthermore, tulving found that the LTM can be split into episodic, semantic and procedural memories.

justification: this suggests that the STM and LTM components can be explained in further detail which the MSM fails to take into account.

implication: as a result the multi-store model of memory can be considered reductionist as it depreciates the value of something so intricate, such as memory, into a set of three basic components without explaining them in further detail.