Multi-Store Model - Memory

Question 1

Who discovered the MSM?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Richard Shriffin

Question 2

What does the MSM do?

Answer 2

Describes how information flows through the memory system.

Question 3

What is the sensory register and what does it do?

Answer 3

• A stimulus from the environment will pass onto the sensory register.
• There are 2 main stores:
  + Iconic Memory - visual information
  + Echoic Memory - auditory information.
• Material in the sensory register lasts very briefly, duration being less than a second.
• Sensory Register has a very high capacity.
• Very little of what goes into the sensory register passes down into further memory, but it will if you pay attention to it.

Question 4

What is the STM and what does it do?

Answer 4

• STM has a limited capacity store and information is coded acoustically and lasts about 30 seconds unless its rehearsed.
• Maintenance rehearsal is when we repeat information to ourselves over and over again.
• We can keep information longer is our STM as long as we rehearse it.
  If we rehearse it long enough, it passes onto the LTM.

Question 5

What is LTM and what does it do?

Answer 5

• Permanent store for memory and unlimited capacity.
• Coded semantically
• Although this material is stored in the LTM if we want to recall it, it has to be transferred back to the STM by a process called retrieval.