multi store model

• who made the multi store model

  Atkinson and Shiffrin
• what does the multi store model describe

  how information flows through the memory system
• what dose the multi store model suggest

  that memory is made up of 3 stores
• what are the 3 stores of the multi store model

  sensory registers, a short term memory store and the long term memory store
• what is the coding of the sensory register

  the form that it is received
• what is the capacity of the sensory register

  very large
• what is the duration of the sensory register

  less than half a second
• what is the coding of the STM

  acoustic
• what is the capacity of the STM

  holds 5-9 items of information but can be increased through chunking
• what is the duration of the STM

  18-30 seconds unless information is rehearsed
• what is the coding of the LTM

  semantic
• what is the capacity of the LTM 


  unlimited
• what is the duration of the LTM

  perminant
• who conducted experimental evidence for the multi store model

  murdock - the serial position curve
• what did murdock demonstrate

  there are two distinctive systems in memory a separate STM and LTM
• what did murdock do

  conducted an experiment in which participants were presented with a list of 20 word to read through the words were presented in a specific order and then the participants were asked to recall the list
• what did murdock do with the results

  counted the number of times ( frequency ) each word was recalled and plotted this against the position of the word in the list, called the 'serial positions'
• what was the conclusion of murdocks study

  murdocks serial position study shows evidence for 2 stores clear distinct separate memory stores, primary effects illustrates a LTM store and the recency effect illustrates a STM store
• what is the clinical evidence for the multi store model

  clive wearing
• what did clive wearing suffer from

  a serve form of amnesia that resulted from a viral infection that attacked his brain
• how long was his memory

  30 seconds
• what can Clive wearing remember

  • how to play the piano
  • the love he has for his wife
• what does Clive wearing not remember

  his children's names
• what does Clive wearing give evidence for

  that there are 2 distinct memory stores as he has no STM but has a LTM
• what can Clive wearing not form

  could not form new episodic
• what memory store does Clive wearing having intact

  he could still play the piano and therefore his procedural memory is intake
• what evidence does Clive wearing provide for the LTM

  there is more than one LTM store
• what is a strength of the MSM (PEEL) (evidence)

  P - a strength would be that there is good research evidence to support this model

  E - Murdock conduced the serial position curve study, where ps were asked to remember a list of 20 words and then recall the list

  E - the results showed that words from the beginning of the list were remembered more because they had been rehearsed and the words from the end of the list had been in the STM and yet to be forgotten

  L - however this shows that research for the lack of external validity and may not reflect real life memory
• what is a limitation for the MSM (PEEL) (oversimplifies)

  P - a limitation is that it oversimplifies the LTM

  E - there is a large amount of evidence which suggests that LTM is not just a unitary store

  E - for example, other research such as Clive wearing suggests that we must have different types of LTM such as memories events (episodic) and memories of how to do things (procedural)

  L - this suggests that the MSM is a limited explanation because it does not reflect these different types of LTM
• what is a limitations of the MSM (PEEL) (STM)

  P - a limitation is that evidence suggests there is more than one type of STM

  E - researchers conducted a study on an amnesia patient and found this STM for digits was very poor but when he read the digits himself the recall was better then when they were read to him

  E - MSM suggest that there is only 1 type of STM but this study suggest that there must be 1 for visual information and 1 for auditory

  L - this suggests that the MSM description of the STM is inaccurate and that the working memory model may be a better explanation of the STM
• what was the result of Murdock's study

  • primary effect - items at the beginning of the list were likely to have been rehearsed and were encoded in the LTM
  • recency effect - items at the end of the list were still in the STM and had yet to be forgotten as they were likely to be the last 5-9 items read in the last 18-30 seconds
  • items in the middles were not in either store and therefore they were likely to be forgotten