AO3

• 1 - Evidence from amnesiacs (someone who has suffered memory loss) supports the multi store model's view that the STM and LTM are completely separate stores. An amnesiac is somebody who has suffered from memory loss. Clive Wearing is a British musician and conductor who contracted the herpes simplex virus that attacked his brain. He has lost most of his LTM but his STM remains intact.
• 1.2 - Whilst he remembers parts of his past, such as the fact he has children, he has lost his memory for events (such as his wedding) and is unable to make new LTMs. His life operates on 30 second intervals. Every 30 seconds or so he is unable to recall what has just happened. The fact that his STM is so intact and his LTM is so damaged supports the idea that the STM and LTM must be two completely separate stores.
• 2 - However, a limitation of the MSM is that research has reported the STM is actually subdivided. KF was a case study reported by Warrington and Shallice (1970). KF had experienced a serious motorcycle accident. This caused him to have severe damage to his STM (his digit span was only 2), although his LTM remained intact. Upon closer inspection, KF's STM only struggled with verbal material. His STM for visual material was fine. The case of KF does not support the MSM as it suggests that the STM should be subdivided and that it is more complex than the model suggests.
• 3 - Despite this, there is further evidence to support the processes involved in the model. Murdock (1966) asked participants to remember a list of words. Immediately afterwards they were given 1.5 minutes to recall as many as they could He found evidence for what has become known as the 'serial position effect' whereby words at the start and end of the list are most likely to be recalled.
• 3.2 - This can be explained in terms of the multi store model and so is seen as support for it. The words at the start of the list had been rehearsed and so transferred from the STM to the LTM from where they were recalled. The words at the end of the list were still in the STM so could be easily recalled. This supports the model's theory of there being two separate stores for STM and LTM and how rehearsal helps to transfer information between these.
• 4 - However, a final limitation of the MSM is that prolonged rehearsal is simply not enough to guarantee the movement of information to the LTM. In fact, the type of rehearsal we do is more important than the amount we do.
• 4.2 - Elaborative rehearsal appears to be much more effective at moving information to the LTM than prolonged rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal is when we add meaning to information. For example, creating acronyms/mnemonics is more effective in your revision than just re-reading information over and over again. This limits the model's idea that prolonged rehearsal is necessary to move things to the LTM.