The multi-store model of memory -A-Level Psychology

The multi-store model of memory

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin’s MSM model explains how information flows through the memory system.It suggests that memory is made up of 3 stores linked by processing.

Sensory register:

A stimulus from the environment will pass into the sensory registers along with other sights,smells and sounds.This part of the memory store is not one but several stores for each of the 5 senses.

–iconic memory(visual information is coded visually) 

–echoic memory(auditory information is coded acoustically).

Material in sensory registers lasts briefly,the duration is less than half a second.They have a high capacity.Very little of what goes into the sensory register passes further into the memory stores.

-Attention can change this.

Short term memory:

Information in the STM is coded acoustically and lasts about 30 seconds unless it is rehearsed.Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves again and again.This keeps the information in the STM and if maintenance rehearsal occurs long enough ,the information can be passed into the LTM.

Long term memory:

This is a permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged period of time.Material stored in the LTM can be recalled,it has to be passed back into the STM through retrieval.According to the MSM,no memory is directly recalled from the LTM.

Evaluation:

Supporting research evidence-Research supports the idea that the LTM and STM are qualitatively different.Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we use our STM and that we mix up words that have similar meanings in the LTM.This shows that coding in the STM is acoustic and that coding in the LTM is semantic which supports the MSM’s theory that the STM and LTM are independent and separate.

STM as a unitary store-The MSM shows the STM as a unitary store which suggests that there is only one type of STM.Evidence from people suffering from amnesia shows that this can not be true.Shallice and Warrington(1970) studied a patient called KF who had poor recall in the STM for digits that were read out to him rather than when he read the digits himself.Further studies showed that there may be a STM for non-verbal sounds.The unitary STM is a limitation of the MSM as research shows that there must be an STM processing visual information and another processing auditory information.The working memory model has these.