Multi Store Model

• Encoding 


  The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores
• Retrieval


  The process of transferring information from LTM to STM, recalling information
• Capacity 


  The amount of information that can be held in each memory store
• Short term memory 


  Is stored and retrieved sequentially.  For example, if a group of participants are given a list of words to remember, and then asked to recall the fourth word on the list, participants go through the list in the order they heard it in order to retrieve the information.
• Long Term Memory 


  Is stored and retrieved by association.  This is why you can remember what you went upstairs for if you go back to the room where you first thought about it.
• Who made the Multistore Model?

  Atkinson & Shiffrin (1972)
• Multi Store Model Diagram 


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• Sensory Memory


  • In the sensory memory information is encoded in a sensory format.
  • It has the capacity of 4 letters
  • the duration is 2 seconds or less
  • Information is forgotten through decay
• Short-term Memory


  • Mainly encoded acoustically
  • 7 +/- 2 chunks of information (Miller 1956)
  • The duration is potentially infinite, as long as maintenance rehearsal is uninterrupted; otherwise a few seconds
  • Forgotten through displacement
• Long-term Memory 


  • Encoded semantically (meaning), according to meaning
  • The capacity is effectively unlimited
  • The duration is potentially unlimited
  • Forgotten through interference
• What did Miller find? 


  Found that on average most people can recall 7 +/- 2 “chunks” of information.
• Describe the multi-store model of memory.


  • The multi-store model has three stores- Sensory, short term

  and long term memory.

  • Information enters our sensory memory from our senses. This

  has a very small capacity and most information is lost through

  decay

  • Information that is attended to is past into the STM. This can

  hold 7+/- 2 chunks of information.

  • Information is lost through displacement unless it is rehearsed.
  • Information that is rehearsed passes to LTM. Here the capacity

  is infinite but information can be lost through interference.