Outline and explain the multi-store model of memory

Akins and Shiffrin formed the multi-store model of memory (1968). They proposed that the process of remembering something is broken down into three stores; sensory, short-term and long term memory and 4 processes. The process beings with people receiving environmental stimuli, which enters into the sensory memory store consisting of our nose, ears, eyes, mouth etc. The sensory store has a large capacity as a large amount of information is received however due to it having to hold a large amount of information is results in it having a low capacity, this results in the information being very weak and to make to process of memory it to continue, attention needs to paid to it. If no attention is paid to the received information, the information will be automatically forgotten, so attention is a very important stage in the process of memory as it will only process to the short-term memory in that way. Once the information has been received into the short-term memory, but will only remain there for a short period of time, as it has a brief duration suggested but Peterson and Peterson and minimal capacity of 7+/- 2, which was suggested by Miller. As the short-term memory has a limited capacity, if more information is taken in the older memories would be wiped out and forgotten. To prevent this happening maintenance rehearsal is needed and this is highlighted in the Peterson and Peterson study. To complete the process of remembering the information more maintenance rehearsal is needed lead the information into the long-term memory. Long-term memory is known to have a limited capacity and a longer duration, suggested by Bahrick et al study on long-term memory. Also the information from the long-term memory can return back to the short-term memory through the process of retrieval, if the memory needs to be used.

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