Multi Store Model

• Encoding: Converting information into a format that can be stored.
• Storage: Holding the information in memory until needed.
• Retrieval: Finding the accessing memory when it’s needed.
• Computer analogy used to explain the brain.
• Episodic: Memories of specific events, places, and people.
• Procedural: Information on how to do things, usually hidden in the subconscious memory.
• Semantic: Memory concerned with meaning.
• Sensory memory is the information from our five senses. Sperling (1960) used a tachiscope to flash a grid with 12 symbols on. Participants could only remember 3-4 items - suggesting limited capacity.

  
• The Short term memory holds information from the Sensory Store that has caught our attention. Peterson and Peterson used the Brown-Peterson effect And were asked to remember trigrams while counting backwards (preventing rehearsal) Average duration of memory was 18-30 seconds.

  
• The Short Term Memory has a capasity of 7 ± 2 items, according to Miller’s Magic 7 study (1956).

  
• Miller’s Magic 7 (1956)

  • The digit span technique was used
  • Participants score was calculated on the number of digits they could recall
  • Miller discovered most participants remembered between 5 and 9 numbers
  • However this capacity can be increased by chunking (remembering numbers in groups / chunks)
• The Long Term Memory carries information that has been rehearsed, and can last a lifetime. Bahrick et al asked participants to put names to faces from high school year books. After 48 years, there was a 70% accuracy rate. However, researchers argue information can be lost through interference, and the percentage of accuracy is not statistically significant.

  
• Strengths:

  • First model for memory
  • Supporting research
  • Case study support (Clive Wearing)
  • Reductionist - makes a difficult concept easy to understand
  • Practical application - helps understand patients with amnesia
• Limitations:

  • Reductionist - oversimplifies
  • LTM doesn’t mention procedural, episodic and semantic memory as Clive Wearing suggests they exist
  • Rehearsal is too simplistic as it doesn’t always work
  • Memory is unlikely to be linear
  • More accurate models exist - The Working Memory Model