A strength of the multi-store model is that is produces predictions that can be tested scientifically, it has high validity. For example, one prediction is that the multi-store model shows that the brain has two separate stores associating with short-term and long-term memory.
This claim has been supported by research such as Glanzer and Cunitz (1966), who investigated how well we are able to transfer information from each section of the multi-store. The method was to announce twenty random words verbally, in a controlled environment, the participants then had to recall as many of the words spoken as possible. The results shown that participants were able to recall words at the beginning and towards the end of the list, this was due to the idea that participants would acoustically rehearse (repetition) the words in the beginning so much that the information would transfer from STM to LTM. This caused participants to pay less attention to the words in the middle. Therefore, words at the end were remembered and made accessible via STM. This strengthens the validity of the multi-store model as this shows that short-term memory and long-term memory are two separate models found within the brain (STM, prefrontal cortex whereas LTM, hippocampus), which supports the prediction made from the multi-store. The process of rehearsal is also supported by the models prediction as words have been transferred from the beginning of the list from short-term memory to long-term memory, thus demonstrating evidence of primary effect.
However, one problem with this research is that participants may have misheard the words, yet recalled the original words correctly. But there might be other factors that have affected the results of this research, for instance participants may have made associations between items, such as giving the words meaning that is personal to them.
This weakens the support provided for the multi-store model because it suggests that, using maintenance rehearsal to the extreme causes words that are acoustically repeated to be changed and to be recalled into an entirely different word.
Another point is that to be able to associate words with photos, we must use not only maintenance rehearsal but also elaborative rehearsal, as it involves deeper processing, this contradicts the original idea of short-term memory and maintenance rehearsal.
One strength of this research is it has a high mundane realism (It is relevant in real life). This strengthens the support provided for the multi-store model as the experiment reflects how our memory is used and works in everyday life, i.e. we must be able to remember numbers, pictures and letters. This means that we can generalise the results from this experiment, thus it can be taken outside the research environment and applicable in everyday life.
A weakness of this model is that there is research that contradicts its predictions in that long-term memory is not one single store but is made of several sub-stores; the sub-stores consist of, procedural, episodic and semantic.
This therefore weakens the validity of the model because it does not account for these other sub-stores that hold different units, making the multi-store model too simplistic. This is shown by Spiers experiment, of studying patients with amnesia.
Overall there are many positives and negatives towards the idea of the multi-store model, in my opinion; I feel that there is more positive feedback towards this model as it demonstrates studies toward capacity, duration and encoding. And that the model produces testable predictions, which is important for the scientific process, to enable theory testing and verification.