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