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4 references
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- Vol 3 RE: Chapter 1
modal memory modelsensory memoryshort-term memorylong-term memoryattention processesrehearsal processesretrieval processesBook chapter Evidence summaryAt a glance
Atkinson and Shiffrin propose the influential “modal model” of human memory. The framework separates relatively permanent structural features from flexible control processes and distinguishes three stores: sensory registers, a limited short-term store, and a long-term store.
Key ideas
Information briefly enters sensory memory; selected material moves into short-term memory, where attention and rehearsal help maintain it; and some information is transferred to long-term memory for later retrieval. Control processes such as rehearsal, coding, search, and decision strategies vary with goals, instructions, tasks, and experience rather than operating as fixed structures. The chapter combines the general architecture with experimental models of particular memory tasks. Later research revised the idea of simple separate stores, but the model established enduring questions about capacity, control, encoding, and retrieval.
Why it matters
For educators, it highlights the need to manage attention and limited immediate processing while supporting organised, retrievable long-term knowledge.
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- Vol 1 TE: App A
working memory capacitychunkingattention limitslong-term memoryinterferencerehearsalindividual differencesBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Cowan’s book examines why working memory—the small amount of information kept readily accessible for current thought—has a sharply limited capacity.
Key ideas
It distinguishes this limit from long-term memory, sensory persistence, rehearsal, and strategies such as grouping items into meaningful chunks. Across behavioural evidence and competing theories, Cowan argues that a central focus of attention typically holds about three to four independent chunks in young adults. Apparent variation in span can arise because tasks differ in chunking, prior knowledge, interference, rehearsal opportunities, and measurement methods. The book compares item-limit, time-based, interference, attentional, biological, and evolutionary explanations and considers how capacity relates to comprehension, reasoning, learning, development, and individual differences.
Why it matters
Its practical lesson is not a simplistic rule about presenting exactly four items; instruction should reduce unnecessary simultaneous demands, connect new material with established knowledge, allow consolidation and retrieval, and recognise that meaningful organisation changes what counts as a chunk.
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- Vol 1 RE: Chapters 2, 4, App A, App B
short-term memory capacityworking memory chunksrehearsalsensory persistenceoutput interferencelong-term memorycapacity variabilityJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Cowan reconsiders Miller’s famous seven-item estimate and argues that the capacity of a central short-term store is closer to four chunks in adults.
Key ideas
The review separates this core limit from processes that can inflate or depress observed span, including rehearsal, grouping, long-term-memory knowledge, sensory persistence, and output interference. Evidence is drawn from several paradigms—brief visual arrays, running spans, unattended speech, recall of unrelated materials, and tasks designed to restrict recoding. Converging estimates often fall near three to five meaningful units when auxiliary strategies are controlled. Cowan treats the proposal as a useful empirical generalisation rather than an invariant ceiling: capacity varies across people, ages, materials, and conditions, and defining a chunk is itself difficult.
Why it matters
For education, the paper cautions against literal “four-item” prescriptions while supporting designs that manage simultaneous information, build schemas that permit chunking, minimise irrelevant load, and give learners opportunities to rehearse, retrieve, and integrate new elements.
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- Vol 1 RE: Chapter 9
- Vol 2 RE: Chapter 3, App A
levels of processingsemantic encodingmemory tracesmaintenance rehearsalelaborative processingretrieval conditionsencoding specificityJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Craik and Lockhart propose levels of processing as an alternative to explaining memory through separate short-term and long-term stores.
Key ideas
Memory traces are viewed as by-products of perceptual and cognitive analysis: shallow processing attends to physical or sensory features, while deeper processing engages pattern recognition, meaning, and semantic relationships. Deeper, more elaborate analysis generally produces more durable retention, whereas simple maintenance rehearsal may sustain information briefly without creating strong long-term memory. The framework shifts attention from where information is stored to what operations are performed during encoding and how those operations relate to later retrieval. The authors present the proposal as a framework for research, not a completed stage theory, and recognise that depth requires operational clarification.
Why it matters
For teaching, the work supports tasks that require explanation, comparison, connection, and meaningful use rather than mere exposure or repetition, while later research cautions that memory also depends on retrieval conditions and the match between encoding and test demands.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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