Multi Store Model

• Who made the Multi Store Model?

  Atkinson and Shiffrin
• What is the Multi Store Model?

  A cognitive approach that explains memory as information passing through a series of 3 storage systems: the sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory
• Multi Store Model Diagram

  Diagram for MSM

  
• What is the sensory register?

  • Immediate data that comes from the senses
  • Coding: Modality Specific ( depends on the sense)
  • Capacity: Unlimited
  • Duration: Limited
• What is the Short-term memory?


  Coding: Acoustic

  Capacity: 7 plus or minus 2

  Duration: Limited e.g 18-30 seconds
• What is the Long-term memory?


  Permanent memory store

  Coding: Semantic

  Capacity: Unlimited

  Duration: Unlimited
• AO3 MSM: Research Support

  • 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 STM
  • But we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTM
  • Further support comes from the studies of capacity and duration
  • These studies clearly show that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores as claimed by the MSM
• AO3 MSM: Counterpoint to Research Support

  • Despite support, in everyday life we form memories related to all sorts of useful things – people’s faces, their names, facts and places
  • But many of the studies that support the MSM used none of these materials
  • They used digits, letters and words that have no meaning
  • This means that the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in our everyday lives where we have to remember much more meaningful information
• AO3 MSM: More than 1 STM store

  • One limitation of the MSM is evidence of more than one STM store
  • Researchers studied a client they referred to as KF who had amnesia
  • KF’s STM for digits was very poor when they were read out loud to him
  • But his recall was much better when he read the digits to himself
  • Further studies of KF showed that there could even be another short-term store for non-verbal sounds (e.g. noises)
  • This evidence suggests that the MSM is wrong in claiming that there is just one STM store processing different types of information (visual, auditory)
• AO3 MSM: Elaborative Rehearsal

  • Prolonged rehearsal is not needed for transfer to LTM
  • According to the MSM what matters about rehearsal is the amount of it – the more you rehearse something the more likely it is to transfer to LTM which is prolonged rehearsal
  • Researchers found that the type of rehearsal is more important than the amount
  • Elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage- when you link the information to your existing knowledge or you think about what it means
  • This suggests that the MSM does not fully explain how long term storage is achieved
• AO3 MSM: Oversimplified

  • Atkinson and Shiffrin based the MSM on the research evidence available at the time that showed STM and LTM to be single memory stores, separate and independent from each other
  • There is a lot of research evidence that LTM is not a single memory store
  • We have one long-term store for our memories of facts about the world and a different one for our memories of how to ride a bike
  • Combined with research showing there is more than one type of STM and more than one type of rehearsal, the MSM is an oversimplified model of memory