Memory

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin's (1968, 1971)

model describes how much information flows through memory system. Model suggests memory is made up of three stores.

sensory register -

stimulus from environment, e.g someones name will pass through sensory registers along with sights, sounds, smells etc.. one store for each sense

two main stores in sensory register is iconic memory (visual) and echoic memory (sound, acoustic)

Material in sensory register only lasts briefly- duration is less than half a second

High capacity eg one hundred million cells in one eye storing data. 

very little of the information that goes into the sensory register passes further into the memory system. Only if you pay attention to it

Short term memory (STM)

limited capacity store- can only contain a number of 'things' until forgetting takes place.

capacity somewhere between 5-9 (7 +-2) although research suggests it is somewhere nearer to 5 than 9.

Information coded acoustically, lasts for about 30 seconds unless rehearsed.

Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over and over again. We can keep information in our STM for as long as we rehearse it, and if we rehearse it long enough, it can pass into our LTM.

Long term memory (LTM)

Potentially permanent memory store, for information that has been rehearsed a lot. Capacity is unlimited and can last for years. LTM codes semantically.

Although material is stored in the LTM it has to be transferred back into STM when we want to recall it. This process is called retrieval. According to the MSM this is true for all memorys and none are directly recalled from the LTM.