Multi Store Model

• MSM A01 - Atkinson Et Al (1968)

  Describes how memory flows through a system - suggests it is made up of three stores linked by processing.
• MSM A01 - Memory system

  1. Stimulus

  2. Sensory register

  3. STM

  4. LTM (through a rehearsal loop)
• MSM A01 - Sensory register

  • Stimulus from the environment e.g. five senses.
  • Iconic (coded visually) and echoic memory (coded acoustically).
  • Brief duration of less than half a second.
  • High capacity.
• MSM A01 - STM

  • Capacity 7 plus or minus 2 items.
  • Coded acoustically.
  • Lasts 30 seconds unless rehearsed.
  • Maintenance rehearsal needed to last longer.
• MSM A01 - LTM

  • Capacity unlimited.
  • Coded semantically.
  • Maintenance rehearsal passes STM into LTM.
• MSM A03 - Supporting evidence

  · Controlled lab studies on capacity, duration and coding support existence of STM and LTM stores.

  · Brain scanning techniques – demonstrates difference between STM and LTM.

  · Beardsley (1997) – prefrontal cortex active is active during STM but not LTM.

  · Squire Et Al (1992) – hippocampus active during LTM not STM.
• MSM A03 - Case studies

  · Individuals with brain damage – different areas of brain active in STM and LTM.

  · Scoville and Milner (1957) study of HM caused by operation to remove hippocampus, reduce epilepsy.

  Personality and intellect intact, could not form new LTMs but could remember things from before surgery.
• MSM A03 - MSM too simple

  · MSM suggests STM and LTM are unitary stores – WMM describes STM is split into many different stores.

  · Different types of STM and LTM – qualitatively different and behave differently.

  · Maintenance rehearsal – long term storage in semantic memory (knowledge about the world) but doesn’t explain long term episodic memories (things experienced).