The Multi-Store Model

• The multistore model of memory was proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin and is a structural model. They proposed that memory consisted of three stores: sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM). Information passes from store to store in a linear way. Both STM and LTM are unitary stores.
• Sensory memory is the information you get from your sense, your eyes, and ears. When attention is paid to something in the environment, it is then converted to short-term memory.
• Information from short-term memory is transferred to long-term memory only if that information is rehearsed (i.e., repeated).
• Maintenance rehearsal is repetition that keeps information in STM, but eventually, such repetition will create an LTM. If maintenance rehearsal (repetition) does not occur, then information is forgotten and lost from short-term memory through the processes of displacement or decay.
• • Encoding is the way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory. There are three main ways in which information can be encoded (changed): 1. visual (picture), 2. acoustic (sound), and 3. semantic (meaning).
• Capacity concerns how much information can be stored.
• Duration refers to the period of time information can last in-memory stores.
• Sensory register

  • Duration: ¼ to ½ second
  • Capacity: all sensory experience (v. larger capacity)
  • Encoding: sense specific (e.g., different stores for each sense)
• Short term memory

  • Duration: 0-18 seconds
  • Capacity: 7 +/- 2 items
  • Encoding: mainly acoustic
• Long term memory

  • Duration: Unlimited
  • Capacity: Unlimited
  • Encoding: Mainly semantic (but can be visual and acoustic)
• AO3: Multistore Memory Model

  One strength of the multistore model is that it gives us a good understanding of the structure and process of the STM. This is good because this allows researchers to expand on this model. This means researchers can do experiments to improve on this model and make it more valid, and they can prove what the stores actually do.
• AO3: Multistore Memory Model

  The model is supported by studies of amnesiacs: For example the patient H.M. case study. HM is still alive but has marked problems in long-term memory after brain surgery. He has remembered little of personal (death of mother and father) or public events (Watergate, Vietnam War) that have occurred over the last 45 years. However, his short-term memory remains intact.
• AO3: Multistore Memory Model

  It has now become apparent that both short-term and long-term memory is more complicated than previously thought. For example, the Working Model of Memory proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) showed that short-term memory is more than just one simple unitary store and comprises different components (e.g., central executive, Visuospatial, etc.).
• Glanzer and Cunitz showed that when participants are presented with a list of words, they tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list, i.e., the serial position effect. This supports the existence of separate LTM and STM stores because they observed a primacy and recency effect. Words early on in the list were put into long-term memory (primacy effect) because the person has time to rehearse the word, and words from the end went into short-term memory (recency effect).