The next category is the duration; this is the length of time that a memory can be held, for the sensory memory the duration is anything between 500miliseconds to 2seconds, the duration for ones short term memory it is up to 18seconds, and the duration for ones long term memory can potentially be a life time.
Finally there is encoding, this is how the input is represented, for the short term memory this is done acoustically, whereas for ones long term memory encoding is carried out semantically.
For a person to purposely move a memory from short term memory to long term memory they must rehearse it e.g. “Must get psychology essay in, must get psychology essay in, must get psychology essay in, must get psychology essay in etc.”
The fault in this set up is that we will forget the majority of what happens and what we need to remember, this will happen in all three stores so in the end, we will only remember 15% of what we hear, and 10% of what we read.
This set up is closely linked to a computer system as during the time this set up was discovered was a time of technical breakthrough in relation to computing.
There are two main supporting case studies to back up this model, the people are known only as KF and HM to keep them anonymous, they are both brain damage studies that prove that the 3 stores (sensory, short term and long term) work separately. KF had his short term memory impaired and was not able to remember anything new for more than 18 seconds, however he still has memories from before the brain damage e.g. he still retains his ability to play piano. Unfortunately these studies cannot be used to generalize as they only contain a small sample.
To further back up this model we can use the serial position curve, which helps show primacy and Recency, this graph works more effectively with a larger sample than a smaller one (as we discovered). A main problem with the model is that it is too simplistic and only gives a reader a basic idea of how memory works, however this can be a good point as it can be used as a starter for learning about the memory. This model does not take into account the idea of chunking, or flash bulb memory, surely if we can put something straight from sensory memory to long term memory it would be much easier to carry out tasks that involve the use of memory. Finally a negative point for this the only substantial tests carried out to back up this model have been lab experiments that do not take into account real life experiences.
