Psychology essay 5

Describe and evaluate the multi-store model of memory. Refer to evidence in your answer

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL OF MEMORY

Specification: The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration.

Atkinson & Shiffrin’s 1968 multi store model was the first cognitive explanation of memory. The model argues that memory is made up of three separate unitary stores.

The three stores are the Sensory Register, Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory. For information to be retained as a memory, the processes of attention and rehearsal are required.

Each store differs in terms of coding, storage and retrieval

1. The Sensory Register (SR)

The Sensory Register receives a huge amount of information through the five senses but most of it receives little or no attention and is lost. The sensory register can only hold information for a very short time. If a person pays attention to the information, it is transferred to the short-term memory store.

Each of the five senses has its own sensory register. Most of the research into sensory memory focuses on visual (Iconic Memory) and auditory (Echoic Memory) senses.

Coding: Duration: Capacity: Iconic for visually material and Echoic for acoustic material

Very brief, usually only 1-2 seconds

Very large as it includes material from all 5 senses.

2. Short term Memory (STM)

STM is for events in the present or immediate past (e.g. trying to remember an order of drinks from the bar). STM codes all information acoustically, that is, according to sound. Visual information is transformed to its acoustic (sound/language) codes. E.g. the image of a bus is transformed into the word ‘bus’. If you find yourself talking or reading aloud while doing your homework, you are using acoustic encoding.

Coding: Acoustic (sound-based)

Duration: 18-30 seconds

Capacity: 7 (+/-) 2 items or chunks

Long term Memory (LTM)

The memory for events that have happened in the more distant past is referred to as long-term memory (LTM).

Information is coded into LTM using semantic coding. This required information to be meaningful in order for it is be stored e.g., remembering a meaningful date, like a birthday or a meaningful event, such as your high school prom. Once info is stored in LTM it is stored permanently. According to the model, any ‘forgetting’ at this stage is because of a failure to retrieve rather than an actual loss of the information.

Coding: Semantic

Duration: Up to a lifetime

Capacity: Unlimited

Research support for the MSM

(Point) A major strength of the MSM is that it is well supported by a range of research evidence.

(Evidence) For example, Glazner and Cunitz (1966) provide clear support for existence of the STM and LTM as distinct memory stores.

Procedure: Participants heard a list of words and had to recall them immediately, in any order.

Findings: Participants had good recall for the first part of the list (primacy effect) and the last part of the list (recency effect). Words in the middle of the list had the poorest recall.

(Link): This supports the MSM as it suggests STM and LTM are distinct separate memory stores.

STM is too simplistic

(Point) A weakness of the MSM is that it is too simplistic.

(Evidence) The MSM states that STM is a unitary store, in other words there is only one type of short-term memory. However, evidence from people suffering from a clinical condition called amnesia show that this cannot be true. For example, Shallice and Warrington (1970) studied a patient with amnesia known As KF. Although KF’s memory for verbal material was poor, his memory for visual information was unaffected.

This suggests that there may be more than one store for STM (one for verbal information and one for visual information).

(Link) This is a very serious limitation of the MSM because it is another research finding that cannot be explained by the model. Later memory models (e.g. working memory model) give a more accurate depiction of STM.

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi store model (MSM ) of memory argues that memory is made up of three separate unitary stores- the sensory register, short term memory and long term memory. Material is encoded to be able to be stored in any of the memory stores, and is transferred to the next store by rehearsal, and remembered through retrieval. The sensory register is the memory store for the information registered through the five senses. It has a very large capacity, however it can only store information for a very short period of time. If a person pays attention to the information, it is transferred to the short-term memory store.

Short term memory is for events in the present or immediate past. Information is encoded acoustically, and has a duration of around 18-30 seconds. The capacity of the short term memory is 7±2 items of chunks, which was proved by Jacob’s and Miller. People may be able to remember more by separating the material into chunks.

Long term memory is for events in the more distant past. Information is encoded acoustically, and has a duration of up to a lifetime, however information can be forgotten. The capacity of long term memory is infinite. According to this model, information that is forgotten is due to a failure to achieve rather than any loss of the information.

One strength of the MSM is that it is well supported by evidence, including Glazner and Cunitz. Participants heard a list of words and had to recall them immediately, in any order. They found that recall was the highest for information from the first and last part of the list (known as the primacy and recency effect), wheras words in the middle of the list had the lowest recall. This supports the MSM as it suggests that STM and LTM are separate stores.

However, one weakness of the MSM is that it is too simplistic. For example, the MSM suggests that STM is a unitary store, however evidence from Shallice and Warrington’s study of KF found that the memory stores for verbal information and visual information were separate, which suggests there may be more than one store for STM. This is a weakness of the MSM as it is a research finding that cannot be explained by the model.

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