MEMORY - MULTI-STORE MODEL

• Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) - MSM. 
• Type of model: a structural model. 
• Three unitary stores: sensory register, STM, LTM. 
• All stimuli goes to the sensory register.  for something to do from the sensory register to STM we need to pay attention to it. if we do not pay attention the stimuli experiences decay.  for something to stay in STM we need to do maintenance rehearsal. in the STM there is forgetting/ displacement.  for something to go from STM to LTM we need to do prolonged rehearsal (thinking about it again & again), for something to go from LTM to STM that is retrieval. 
• strength(s): -Clive Wearing. No STM, still some LTM which proves that the stores are separated. Wearing cannot rehearse new information so nothing goes into LTM. Wearing still has procedural memories. This case study emphasizes the different stores and rehearsal.
• weakness(es):  -the MSM oversimplifies memory. It only states the different stores and does not include the different types of memories within the stores. For example, the MSM only looks at LTM as a whole and not the different types of LTMs: procedural, semantic and episodic.  -the stimuli used in research that supports the MSM is artificial (words/lists/digits). This means supporting research lacks mundane realism and the MSM cannot be applied to how our memory works.