Outline and evaluate the MSM of

memory (12 marks)

The multistore model of memory researched by Atkinson and Shiffrin, is an explanation of memory based
on three memory stores: the sensory store (SM), the short term store (STM), and the long term store
(LTM).The model begins in the sensory register, in where information is held at each of the senses
(eyes/sight, ears/hearing, nose/smell, fingers/touch, tongue/taste) and the other corresponding areas of
the brain. The capacity of the sensory registers are very large, as they are constantly receiving
information, however most of this has no attention and remains in the sensory register for a brief duration
(millisecond). The second stage of the model is attention, in where if a person’s attention is focused on
one of the memory stores, the data is transferred to the STM. Attention is also an important stage as it is
the first step in remembering something. The first stage of the model is the STM, as information is held
there so it can be used for immediate tasks, for example working on a Maths problem or remembering the
directions to a friends house. As the STM has a limited duration, it’s in a fragile state and will disappear
(decay) relatively quickly, if it hasn't been rehearsed. A method in remembering information in a test for
example, is to repeat the things that want to be remembered over and over again, which is known as
Maintenance rehearsal. This is largely verbal (hence why it is sometimes called verbal rehearsal). In this
process, information will also disappear from the STM if new information enters it, in which the STM will
push out (or displace) the original info, due to its limited capacity. Repetition keeps information, but
eventually such repetition will create an LTM, Atkinson and Shiffrin therefore proposed a direct
relationship between rehearsal in the STM and the strength of the LTM, the more info that is rehearsed,
the better it is remembered. The LTM is potentially unlimited in duration and capacity, for example, you
may feel that there are many things you once knew but have forgotten but the evidence suggests that
either you actually had never really made the memory permanent or it’s there, but you just can’t find it.
What can also happen is retrieval, which is the process of getting information from LTM passing back
through the STM, making it available for use.

A criticism of the MSM is that research by Logie (1999) has found that the suggestion that the STM is
involved before LTM is inaccurate. Logie pointed out that STM actually relies on LTM and therefore
cannot come first as suggested in the MSM. For example; in order to chunk a list of letters or numbers,
they are chunked so that they have meaning, this meaning has been recalled from the LTM store.

The MSM is supported by the case of HM; HM suffered brain damage after an operation to remove the
hippocampus on both sides of his brain in order to reduce the severe epilepsy that he suffered from. After
the operation HM’s personality and intellect remained intact but he could not form any new long term
memories, although he could remember things from before the operation. The hippocampus has been
linked in the past to the STM, so by removing the hippocampus the STM has been essentially removed.
HM can not form new memories although can remember memories from before the operation, which
supports the idea that information has to go through the STM store before it can be encoded into the LTM
store.

Another criticism of the MSM; Shallice & Warrington studied a patient with amnesia (known as KF), they
seemed to have deficits in some areas of the STM but not in others (STM for digits was very poor when
received verbally, but better when received visually) which suggests that STM is not one simple store as
MSM suggests. Additionally, there is a lot of research that LTM, like STM, is not a unitary memory store.
There is a LTM store for semantic memory (memories and facts about the world), a store for procedural
memory (how to ride a bike), and a store for episodic memory (personal memories about ourselves).

Taimaa Barazi and Malou Albertsen