Multi-Store Memory

Multi-Store Memory

1. The Multi-store model of memory was introduced by Atkinson and Shiffron. It was created based on a collection of research.

2. Three assumptions:

   • The first assumption is that it is made up of three unitary stores, including the sensory register, short term memory and long term memory.
   • Each store includes specific encoding, duration and capacity.
   • The process is linear. Information gets transferred from each store by attention and rehearsal.

3. Sensory registers

   • Iconic register- the duration is 1/4 to 1/2 a second long. It has a large capacity and the coding is visual. For example,Sperling found that with a matrix full of letters, when displayed for less than a second on average 4-5 letters are recalled. But people reported that they remembered seeing more. When prompted to remember a specific line, on average they remembered 4. This suggests that iconic memory has a large capacity but a short duration and so the image will have decayed before a person could fully recount it.
   • Haptic memory, this is the information we receive from touch. Gilson and Baddeley. With no rehearsal this lasts up to two seconds.
   • Echoic register is the one that deals with sound, its duration is about 3-4 seconds which is more than iconic.

4. Short- term memory

   • Duration- 12- 18 seconds, max 30 secs. Example study is Peterson and Peterson, in this participants were asked to recall trigrams at different intervals of 3 seconds. They were given interference tasks to prevent rehearsal. 3- 80%, 9-30% and 18-10%. Concluding that duration is average 12-18, max 30 seconds
   • Capacity- the capacity of short term memory is 7+/- 2. Evidence supporting this is Jacobs, He found that when asking participants to recall a string of letters or numbers. Each time adding another digit, it was found that the average before someone would make a mistake was 7+/-2.
   • Encoding- the coding of short term memory is acoustically. This is because findings conducted by Conrad showed that when participants where given two lists of letter, one that sounded similar and one that didn't, they had to recall immediately. They all found it harder to recount the words that sounded similar, because this was more difficult it shows that STM is coded acoustically.

5. Long-term memory

   • Coding- long term memory is encoded semantically. This is supported by research conducted by Baddeley, he found that when words were presented, one list semantically similar and the other acoustically similar. Participants had 20 minutes to learn them and he found when tested to recall the words semantically similar where recalled the worst (55%), showing it is coded semantically because it is more difficult to remember. If words sounded similar it had little effect (85%).
   • Capacity and duration- long term memory capacity and duration is unlimited. This is supported by Bahrick who found that with 400 participants asked to recall people from their graduating class, match photos and name recognition test. Majority were able to remember if given sufficient cues, although it did get worse with age. However, it does suggest that long term memory is unlimited in both capacity and duration.