MULTI STORE MODEL -Attkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

MULTI STORE MODEL -Attkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

1. Sensory Memory (SM)

   • Information form the environment (e.g. visual/auditory) initially enters SM. if you pay attention/think about the information it will be encoded into your STM. any information not important decays/disappears
     • Short Term Memory (STM)
       • If the information in you STM is rehearsed it's processses further and is transferred into LTM. (In theory that information can remain there forever)
         • Long Term Memory (LTM)
           • LTM is the third and final store of the model.
           • CAPACITY: LTM has an unlimited capacity but it is incredibly difficult too test.
           • ENCODING: Baddely (1966) suggested that LTM is more likely to on sematic encoding
           • DURATION: Information in LTM can last up to a lifetime. Bahrick et al (1975) showed evidence of VLTM's in a real life setting but the information is not always easy to access (e.g. recognition is better than recall).
       • STM is the second 'store' in the model'.
       • ENCODING: Baddely (1966) suggested that STM is more likely to rely on acoustic encoding.
       • CAPACITY: the capacity of STM is very limited,Jacobs (1887) concluded that STM has a capacity of 5-9 items. Miller (1956) came up with his 'Magic number 7' concept that proposed the capacity of STM is 7 items plus/minus 2.
       • DURATION: STM has a temporary capacity. Peterson and Peterson (1959) concluded that when rehearsal is prevented, very litte can stay in STM for longer than about 18 seconds.
   • SM is the first 'store' in the model, it contains visual and auditory information that passes through our senses very briefly
   • ENCODING: It's impossible to study encoding into SM as you can't visualise how people take in information. but mainly; visual, acoustic, tactile.
   • CAPACITY: Sperling (1960) suggested that visual sensory memory can hold upto 10 items..
     • DURATION: Sperlings experiment also found that the information decays within about 2 seconds (- before we can recall all 10 items)

2. Each store has its own characteristics

   • ENCODING: the way in which information is transferred into a form that can be stored. There are 3 main ways inwhich information in encoded; 1. visual (picuture), 2. Acoustic (sound) and Sematic (meaning).
   • CAPACITY: the amount of information that can be stored.
   • DURATION: The period of time that the information can last in the memory stores

3. EVALUATION

   • STRENGTHS
     • Several studies support the idea that memory is made up of seperate stores.
       • Glanzer and Cunitz's serial position curve shows the primary and recency effect : Ppts were able to recall the first few and last few items from a list and couldn't those in the middle. This is because the first few items will have been rehearsed more and transferred to LTM and the lest few will still be in STM
         • Peterson & Peterson also found, once an interference task is added to prevent rehearsalm the primacy effect disappears - as the model predicts.
     • People with Korsakoff's syndrome (amneisia) only show the recency effect as they can recall the last few items in a list, suggesting an unaffected STM, but poor LTM. This supports the model by showing STM and LTM as seperate stores.
   • LIMITATIONS
     • In the model information is transferred from STM to LTM through rehearsal. Rehearsal is not always need for information to be stored, in real life people dont always spend time rehearsing but information is still transferred into LTM, Likewise some items can't be rehearsed, e.g. smells.
     • The model is too simple.
       • It assumes there's only one long-term store and one short-term store. This has been disapproved by evidence from damaged brain patient, suggesting several different short-term and long-term stores.