Multi-Store Model of Memory. In this essay we will be looking at what research and evidence there is to support the model

It is also supported by studies of amnesiacs, with cases such as that of Henry Molaison (HM). After having his hippocampi removed in a bid to cure his epilepsy, he was left severely amnesic, losing the ability to form new memories and therefore being unable to lead a normal life. However, despite this, he could still recall early childhood memories and do everyday activities such as tie his shoelaces. When set a task to do involving drawing a picture of a star reflected in the mirror, although he could not remember doing it each day, his skill of the challenge grew better each day. This would suggest that the hippocampus is in fact responsible for the formation of new long-term memories, but not for the retrieval of them, supporting the idea of the multi-store model.

However, the model also has its weaknesses. It could be argued that it is in fact oversimplified and does not explain the full process of how information passes through. It has become more apparent that both LTM and STM are a lot more complicated than previously thought, and could be explained in a better way by looking at Baddeley and Hitch’s (1974) Working Memory Model (WMM). They argue that the multi-stores’ idea of STM is far too simple, and that it is not a unitary store as the model might suggest. The WMM describes an alternative version of STM, known as working memory, in which it has different systems for different types of information. There is the Central Executive (CE), which drives the whole system and allocates information to the subsystems, whilst dealing with cognitive tasks such as problem solving and arithmetic. Then there are the Visio-Spatial Sketch Pad (VS), which stores information in a visual or spatial form, and the Phonological Loop (PL), which deals with spoken or written material, such as remembering a phone number (McLeod, simplypsychology.org).

This model is better than the MSM version for explaining how the STM memory works in greater detail, as researchers today generally agree it is made up of a number of subsystems. It makes sense of a range of tasks - verbal reasoning, comprehension, reading, problem solving and visual/spatial processing. It is also supported by a considerable amount of evidence, such as the KF case study. KF was a patient who suffered brain damage as the result of a motorbike accident, resulting in loss of his STM. However, his impairment only really affected his capacity for verbal information, as his memory for visual information was largely unaffected. This supports the idea of the STM being made up of different subsystems, as if it was only one singular unit it would have been affected as a whole. It is also supported by studies such as Baddeley and Hitch’s dual-task experiment, in which participants were asked to perform two tasks at the same time - a digit span task which required them to repeat a list of numbers, and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions. As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took only fractions of a second longer to answer. They also did not make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased. This concludes that the verbal reasoning task made use of the CE and the digit span task made use of the PL (McLeod, simplypsychology.org).

However, a weakness of this model is that there is little to no evidence of how the CE works and what it does. It also focuses mainly on STM as opposed to the movement from STM to LTM, and like the MSM does not explain changes in processing ability that occur as the result of practice or time. Liebermann also argues that the VS subsystem should perhaps be separated into two different components, as the two are not necessarily linked, such as in the case of blind people who have excellent spatial awareness yet no visual information in the first place (McLeod, simplypsychology.org).

In conclusion, the Multi-Store model of memory does give a basic insight to how memory works and is the foundation on which many more ideas for memory have been built. However it has now been realised that it is in fact too simple and that alternative ideas such as the Working-Memory model may give a better look into how the information passes through from one system to the other. Both have considerable amount of evidence to support them and strengths and weaknesses of their own but do not focus on more than the passing of information from one storage system to another.

Reference List

• Gross, R (2010), Psychology: Science of Mind and Behaviour, London: Hodder Education
• McLeod, S (2008), Working Memory, Available online at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html [Accessed 12 December 2012]
• McLeod, S (2007), Multi Store Model of Memory - Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968, Available online at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/multi-store.html [Accessed 12 December 2012]

                                                                                           

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