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multi-store model of memory - Coggle Diagram
multi-store model of memory
stimulus
sensory register (iconic, echoic, other sensory stores)
short term memory
prolonged maintenance rehearsal leads to...
long term memory
retrieval (LTM TO STM)
maintenance rehearsal loop (between STM and LTM)
explanation
a stimulus from the environment will pass into the sensory register along with lots of other sights, sounds, smells etc. it is not one store but several for our senses. - very little of what goes on in the sensory register passes further into the memory system but it will if you pay attention to it.
2 main stores are iconic (visual information is coded visually) and echoic (sounds or auditory information is coded acoustically) -
duration is very brief (less than half a second) and it has a high capacity (over one hundred million cells in one eye each storing data)
STM known as a limited capacity store (only contains a certain number of things before forgetting occurs)
capacity is on average somewhere between 5 and 9 items, information is coded acoustically and duration lasts about 30 seconds but longer if rehearsed
maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat information to ourselves over and over and if we rehearse it long enough, info passes to our LTM
LTM known as a potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a long time.
capacity is potentially unlimited, coding is semantic and the duration is many years
the material stored in LTM has to be transferred back to STM by a process called retrieval when we want to recall it. according to the multi-store model this is all of our true memories and none are recalled directly from LTM
case studies
the case of HM can be used to support the multi-store model. it supports the central feature of the model, that there are two separate and independent memory stores, STM and LTM. the case shows that it is possible to suffer damage to one of these stores with the other remaining unaffected - HM could not create new LTMs but could store memory in STM. this shows that there is supporting evidence for the multi-store model but it may not be generalised to everyone
the case of KF - Shallice and Warrington studied a patient with amnesia. his STM for digits was poor when they were read to him but his recall was better when he read better when he read the digits to himself.
evaluation
strength - comes from supportive evidence. controlled lab studies on capacity, duration, and coding support the existence of separate short and long term stores. for example, Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we use our STMs but we mix up words with similar meanings for our LTM. this shows that coding in STM is acoustic and LTM is semantic. this supports the idea of separate short and long term memory stores, which is the basis of the multi-store model
limitation - it has been criticised for being overly simplistic. the case of KF shows that STM is not a unitary store as the MSM states. KFs STM for digits was very poor when they were read aloud to him but his recall was very good when he was able to read the digits himself, suggesting STM has a visual and auditory store. this suggests that the MSM provides a simplistic model of memory and does not take into account the different types of STM and LTM.
limitation - another criticism of the MSM is that LTM involves more than just maintenance rehersal. Craik and Watkins found that maintenance rehearsal does not transfer information into the LTM, it maintains the STM. this suggests that the process of rehearsal does not fully explain the process of remembering information in LTM