Multi-store model of memory

Who was the MSM proposed by?

Atkinson & Shiffrin

sensory register (SR)

• duration: less than half a second

• capacity: high capacity - a lot

• coding: contains 1 store for every sense we have, depends on the sense involved → eg iconic store for visual mem + echoic store for acoustic info (sound)

short term memory (STM)

• duration: less than 30 seconds w/o rehearsal

• capacity: 5-9 bits of info (incr w chunking) → 7+/-2

• coding: acoustic info

long-term memory (LTM)

• duration: up to a lifetime

• capacity: potentially unlimited

• coding: semantic (with meaning)

what is duration, capacity and coding ?

duration: how long info stores

capacity: how much info stored

coding: format info stored in

what is one strength of the MSM?

+ RS for the MSM

• Baddeley showed how acous confusion in STM occ when words sound sim but sem confusion occurs in LTM when words have sim meaning, showing STM + LTM must encode differently

• Shallice & Warrington stud K.F. who suffered amnesia from brain damage after motornike accident

• f he had poor STM, but norm LTM after his accident

• T: incr cred of MSM, supp id stm/ltm are separate stores as shown in MSM

what are 3 weaknesss of the MSM?

• confl knowledge that doesnt supp MSM

• LMR, LEV

• limited

what is the conflicting knowledge that doesn’t support the MSM?

• acc to MSM, more u rehearse smth, more likely it is to transfer to LTM

• h, rs has shown type of rehearsal more imp for transfer than amount

• eg elaborative rehearsal is when u link info to ur prev knowledge

• MSM shows stm/ltm as single stores but rs has shown stm + ltm to be multi-comp

• T: red cred of MSM, MSM more complex than predicted

how does the supporting research often have LMR/LEV?

• rs into mem, such as Baddeley use digits, letters, words/nonsense trigrams

• studies take place in lab which is unfam + artif environm for ppt

• may cause ppts to change how they beh irl where we rmb more meaningful info such as faces + names, this happens in fam environ

• T: red external valid of rs, may not be able to gen findings of supp rs to how mem used irl

how is the MSM limited?

• acc to MSM info must flow thru STM to reach LTM

• h, k.f has LTM info post accid meaning info must have transferred to his LTM w/o going thru his STM as its faulty

• also rs from Baddeley to supp id STM + LTM r not single stores, but multi-comp

• T: more rs needed to underst processes + stores of LTM more