Multi-Store Model

• Multi-Store Model of Memory

  Created by Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1971

  • represented by 3 stores - describes how information is transferred from one store to another and how it is remembered/forgotten

  1. Stimulus from environment
  2. Sensory register
  3. STM
  4. rehearsal -> LTM
• Sensory register

  • duration - 0.5 seconds
  • capacity - very large (all sensory experience)
  • coding - sense specific
• STM

  • duration - 15 to 30 seconds
  • capacity - limited, typically holding 7+/-2 items (acc. to Miller)
  • coding - mainly acoustic
• LTM

  • duration - from hours to a lifetime
  • capacity - unlimited
  • coding -mainly semantic
• Primacy and recency - Cunitz

  • Cunitz found we tend to recall more words at the beginning (primacy) as it is transferred to LTM through rehearsal
  • Also recall more words towards the end (recency) as it stays in the STM
  • Information in the middle is lost due to rehearsal of first words
  • supports the MSM theory by showing rehearsal is important
• Evaluation of MSM

  Strength:

  • credible - supported by case studies like Baddeley that show STM and LTM are separate stores

  Weakness:

  • reductionist - MSM can be argued to be oversimplified as there may be multiple STM and LTM stores e.g. LTM can be split into episodic, procedural and semantic memory