Multi Store Model of Memory

Multi Store Model of Memory

1. Background

   • Model of storage
   • Duration
     • How long information remains in store
   • Capacity
     • Size of the store

2. Structure

   • Describes memory as having three basic stores
     • Sensory register
     • Short-term memory
     • Long-term memory
   • Sensory experience is something we have seen, heard or touched
   • Sensory experience enters sensory register and is held for brief moment before decay
   • Attended information is then transferred to short term memory for around 30 seconds
   • Rehersal is used to maintain this information for a longer period of time
   • Transferred to a lomg-term permenant storage in long-term store

3. Sensory register/ memory

   • Sensory register for each of the sensory modalities
   • Visual sensory register widely researched
     • Sperling 1960, 1963
       • Visual array of letters presented via tachistoscope for brief second
       • Directions given to recall whole or specific row
       • Recalled on average 4.32 letters of whole array
       • Recalling a row immediantely after presentation is precise but decays rapidly if there is a delay

4. Short-term store

   • Information is held temporarily for 15 - 30 seconds
   • Information assumed to decay completely unless it can be maintained
   • Peterson and Peterson - 1959
     • Investigated the duration of short-term memory
     • Used interference task to prevent rehearsal
     • Asked to remember a single trigram at intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12 and 18 seconds
     • Trigram was read out and given a number to count back from in threes
     • Correct recall is likely after a short period of time but drops rapidly after 15 - 18 seconds
   • Capacity
     • 7 +/- items of information
   • Encoding
     • Acoustic

5. Long term

   • Proposed that multiple copies of memories are stored
     • People could accurately recall they knew a correct fact but could not recall what