THE MULTI-STORE MODEL OF MEMORY

• Who made the MSM?

  • ATKINSON & SHIFFRIN- 1968
• Sensory Register (SR)

  • First memory store
  • Receives SENSORY STIMULI from the ENVIRONMENT
• There is a store for each of our senses:

  • ECHOIC store- AUDITORY info
  • ICONIC store- VISUAL info
• KEY POINTS:

  • We have the ability to hold vast amounts of info (1 eye= 100 million pieces of info)
  • Information stored for less than 1/2 a second
• Strength- Supporting evidence of separate stores:

  • HM- (Millner 1966) went under brain surgery- remembered little of personal (death of mother / father) or public events (Vietnam War) that had occurred in the last 45 years- short- term memory remained intact- STM & LTM are separate
  • Furthermore- Brain scans- different parts of the brain active when performing STM & LTM tasks
  • Increases validity- theory of multiple stores can be demonstrated in real life
• Weakness- Contradictory evidence for MSM:

  KF (Shallice & Warrington 1977)

  • Been in a motorcycle crash- sustained brain damage 
  • STM- able to recall words when he read them to himself- unable to recall words, when someone else read them to him- STM has more than 1 store- not explained by MSM
  • Decreases the validity- cannot explain findings of KF
• Weakness- Opposing theory for MSM

  • Baddeley & Hitch- developed WMM
  • Explanation of the complexity of STM & a way of explaining research findings not explained by MSM e.g dual-tasking
  • Decreases validity of the MSM as memory is explained in much more detail 
• THE MULTI-STORE MODEL:

  • Sensory Stimuli -> Sensory Register -> (attention) STM -> <- LTM
• Sensory Register:

  • Info stored ECHOICALLY / ICONICALLY
• Short-term memory:

  • CODING, CAPACITY & DURATION
  • RECALL- our ability to REMEMBER the info STORED
  • REHEARSAL LOOP- where MATERIAL is REPEATED to keep it in the STM
• Long-term memory:

  • Retrieval- pulling info from the LTM -> STM to be RECALLED
  • PROLONGED REHEARSAL- enough REHEARSAL -> info to the LTM