How Many Different Types of Memory System Are There? Illustrate Your Answer with Examples of the Kinds of Information Which Each System Stores

Although the belief that memory is composed of several distinct systems is not novel, it is only around the mid 20th century that experimental studies carried out on amnesic patients have started to confirm it (Squire, 2004). This essay will discuss the different types of memory systems that have been found, their distinctions and evidence supporting their existence derived from studies on amnesiacs.

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) multi-store model suggests that memory is a flow of information processed through three stores (Myers, 2010). The first system called sensory memory (SM) processes mainly visual and auditory information from our environment (Myers, 2010). It is made up of several components associated with each sense and filters information experienced by the senses – iconic SM which receives visual information has a very short retention time of merely a half of a second while echoic SM which receives auditory stimuli has a slightly longer retention time of three to four seconds (Sperling, 1960; Myers, 2010). If attention is brought to sensory information, it is transferred to the next system called short term memory (STM) (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). This system processes visual and auditory information received from SM for approximately one minute and also temporarily uses retrieved information from the long-term memory for problem-solving (Myers, 2010). Miller’s (1956) study has shown that STM is not only limited in retention duration but also in capacity having on average a storage capacity of seven bits of information whether verbal or numerical (Myers, 2010). The last system is long term memory (LTM), often referred to as the ‘permanent storage’ (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). As its name suggests, it has unlimited capacity to store a vast amount of information such as motor skills, language, autobiographical and factual information (Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson, 2009).

The three basic memory stores are distinct from each other in terms of

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