Multi-store memory model

• MSM: Sensory store

  Stimuli from environment

  • Encoding: 5 senses (smell, sight, sound)
  • Capacity: very high
  • Duration: 1/2 second
  • Transfers into stm only if attention is paid to it
• MSM: short-term

  Limited capacity store of temporary duration

  • Encoding: acoustically
  • Capacity: 7+/-2 (magic number)
  • Duration: 18-30 seconds
  • Maintenance: maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves, can keep material in STM if we rehearse it
  • Transfers to LTM if we rehearse it enough (prolonged rehearsal), STM moves to LTM
• Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968): LTM


  Permanent memory store

  • Encoding: semantically
  • Capacity: Potentially unlimited (if rehearsed)
  • Duration: up to a lifetime
  • Retrieval: when we want to recall info stored in LTM, it has to be transferred back in process called retrieval
• A03 of MSM: Supporting evidence


  Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STM (so STM coding is acoustic), and we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTM (so coding is semantic). This supports MSM views.

  CA: not generalisable

  Studies tend not to use meaningful info. (Jacobs: digits/letters) - not a valid model of how memory works in everyday life (lacks ecological validity)
• A03 of MSM: Case study evidence (Patient HM)


  Patient HM suffered from epilepsy + had brain surgery to correct this, removed his hippocampus. After surgery, HM could remember events + some info and details from before surgery (LTM) bur could not form new memories (STM could not be transferred to LTM). This adds weight to the argument that the brain uses separate regions or structures for STM + LTM
• A03 of MSM: Conflicting evidence - more than 1 STM store


  Patient KF had amnesia: STM recall for digits was poor when he heard them but much better when he read them himself - MSM wrong to claim there is only 1 STM store processing different types of info. A better model on memory is the WMM, this looks into the active areas of STM when working on different problems