msm

• Multi-store model


  An information processor model that is linear, meaning information is moved through in one direction, and the stores are passive, meaning they just hold on to information
• Stores in the multi-store model

  • Sensory register
  • Short-term memory
  • Long-term memory
• Sensory register


  • Directly receives sensory information
  • Coding is modality-specific (depends on the sense organ)
  • Capacity is very large, potentially unlimited
  • Duration is very short, around 250 milliseconds
• Short-term memory


  • Coding is acoustic
  • Capacity is 7 items plus or minus 2
  • Duration is 18-30 seconds
• Long-term memory


  • Coding is semantic (stored as part of a set of meaningful connections)
  • Capacity and duration are very large, potentially unlimited
• Information flow through the multi-store model

  1. Sensory register

  2. Attention

  3. Short-term memory

  4. Rehearsal (maintenance or elaborative)

  5. Long-term memory
• Information not attended to in the sensory register is lost
• Information not passed from short-term memory to long-term memory is lost, either due to displacement or decay
• Primacy-recency effect


  Participants tend to remember the first and last words in a list, but struggle to remember the middle words
• The primacy-recency effect suggests long-term and short-term memory are separate processes
• Sensory register has a much larger capacity than short-term memory, as demonstrated by the Sperling study
• Short-term memory is coded acoustically, as shown by the Baddeley study on acoustically and semantically similar/dissimilar words
• The capacity of short-term memory is 7 items plus or minus 2, as shown by the Jacobs study
• The duration of short-term memory is 18-30 seconds, as shown by the Peterson and Peterson study
• Long-term memory is coded semantically, as shown by the Baddeley study
• The capacity and duration of long-term memory are very large, potentially unlimited, as shown by the Wagner and Bahrick studies
• Some basic assumptions of the multi-store model, such as the fixed capacity of short-term memory, lack face validity