The multi store model

• Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi store model describe how information flows through the memory system
• All stimuli from the environment pass into the sensory register. This part of memory contains several registers, one for each of our five senses.
• SENSORY REGISTER

  • coding is modality specific. the store for coding visual information is iconic memory and the store coding acoustically is echoic memory. Other sensory stores for touch,taste and smell.
  • Duration is very brief - less than half a second
  • High capacity

  information passes further into the memory system if you pay attention to it
• SHORT TERM MEMORY

  • Information is mainly coded acoustically and last about 18 seconds unless it is rehearsed, so it is a more temporary store
  • Limited capacity store because is can only contain a certain number of things before forgetting occurs
• Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over and over again. We can keep information in our STMs as long as we rehearse it. If we rehearse it long enough it passes into LTM memory
• LONG TERM MEMORY

  • Potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time
  • capacity is unlimited
  • coded most semantically
  • duration is up to a lifetime
• evidence for LTM is the fact that Bahrick's participants were able to recognise the names and faces of their school classmates almost 50 years after graduating
• according to the MSM, when we want to recall information from LTM it has to be transferred back into STM by a process called retrieval.
• EVALUATION - research support

  There's support from studies showing that STM and LTM are different.

  Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs but mix up words with similar meanings when we use our LTMs.

  Further support comes from the studies of capacity and duration

  Studies clearly show that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores