The Multi store model of memory

It is an explanation of how memory processes work
3 main components
1. Sensory memory
  1. Composed of several stores- eyes,ears,nose,fingers etc and the corresponding areas of the brain
  2. Constantly receiving info, most receives no attention and remains in sensory store for very brief period
  3. If attention is focused on one of the sensory stores, transferred to STM
2. Short term memory
  1. Information will 'decay' disappear quickly if not rehearsed
  2. It will also disappear if new info enters the STM pushing out(displacing) the original information
    1. STM has limited capacity
  3. 7+-2 capacity
3. Long term memory
  1. The more something is rehearsed the more lasting the memory will be
    1. Maintenance rehearsal- largely verbal
  2. Unlimited capacity
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
Evidence for 3 separate stores
1. The sensory store
  1. Sperling (1960)
  2. Participants saw grid of letters+digits for 50 milliseconds, either asked to write down all 12 or told they would hear a tone immediately after and should write down that row
    1. When asked to write down whole thing recall was poorer. (5 items recalled=42%) When asked to give one row (3 items recalled=75%)
      1. Shows info decays rapidly in sensory store
2. The serial position effect
  1. Glanzer&Cunitz (1966)
  2. Gave participants 20 words presented one at a time and then asked to recall them
    1. Tended to remember words from start of the list (primacy effect) and from the end of the list (recency effect) less good at recalling words in middle
      1. Primacy effect occurs, first words are best rehearsed and transferred to LTM. Recency effect occurs because words are in STM when asked to recall the list
3. Areas of the brain associated with STM and LTM
  1. Link STM and LTM to specific areas of the brain. Modern techniques of scanning the brain can be used (PET scans and fMRI- used to detect brain tumours)- they take images of active brain and enable us to see what region is active when a person is doing a particular task
  2. Research found prefrontal cortex active when individuals working on STM task (Beardsly,1997). Whereas hippocampus is active when LTM is engaged (Squire et al, 1992)
Evaluation
1. Strengths
  1. Strong evidence of 3 different stores
  2. Model does provide an account of memory in terms of both structure+process
  3. Clear predictions about memory meaning psychologists can conduct studies to test it.
2. Limitations
  1. Oversimplifies memory structures memory structures and processes
  2. STM and LTM are not completely separate stores
  3. Rehearsal is not the only way to transfer from STM to LTM: processing can also do it (semantics)
Structures: STM+LTM are not unitary stores
1. Evidence for non-unitary STM came from case study of KF- suffered brain damage resulted in difficulty dealing with verbal info but normal ability to process visual suggesting STM has more than one store
2. LTM has more than one store suggested by people with amnesia. Spiers et al (2000) studied memory in 147 patients with amnesia.
How separate are STM+LTM?
1. Logie (1999) pointed out STM relies on LTM therefore cannot come 'first' as suggested

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The Multi store model of memory

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