Evaluation of Two Models Of Memory

1417 Words3 Pages

Evaluation of Two Models Of Memory In this essay 2 models of memory will be described and compared. They are the Atkinson and Sniffrin model of memory, the Multistore model, and Crain and Lockhart model, the Levels of Processing Model. Models of memory are primitive diagrams of human memory to help understand the flow of information and how it is stored. In order to evaluate those 2 models appropriately it is important to understand how old they are. The Multistore Model of Memory by Atkinson and Shiffrin is a very primitive model although it does try to explain how the memory works quite well. It recognises 3 memory stores – the Sensory Memory Store, the short-term memory store and the long-term memory store. The environment makes available a variety of sources of information. The information comes in through the sensory system – through one of the five human senses. For a brief time it gets stored in the sensory memory store; 2 seconds for auditory and 0.5 second for visual information. It is an exact copy of the stimulus, although it lasts for a very short time. The experiment done by Sperling in 1960, where he showed a quick image to the participants and asked them to write the answers down, supports the theory of existence of the Sensory memory store, as participants could only remember 36% of the image on average. According to the model, if attention is paid to an external stimulus, an internal thought, or both, then it is stored in the short-term memory. It is mostly stored in auditory form, however other types of encoding are also possible. Short-term memory is also called working memory and relates to what we are thinki... ... middle of paper ... ...n order to transfer it to STM and LTM. However, the multistore memory shows that in order for the information to get transferred to LTM, it has to be rehearsed, whereas the Levels of Processing model shows that it is enoungh for the input to trigger some kind of association on semantic level for it to be transferred to LTM. The Levels of Processing does not show any Memory Stores or where the memory is stored, so it is quite limited, whereas the other model does show 3 memory stores. The levels of processing model is very limited as it does not show where information is stored and how it is forgotten. I think the multistore model, although very simplistic does give a better understanding about the human memory that the other one. It is a very good model for the time it was made and it is based on reliable evidence.

Open Document