Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) influential model overshadowed their contemporary theory of human memory

Abstract

Although every student of memory knows about the Atkinson-Shiffrin (1968) model, few know that it was advanced as a general-purpose modeling framework, not as the specific theoretical instantiation that appears in textbooks today. Largely missing from the historical record is the broader theoretical perspective proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), one that is surprisingly consistent with contemporary views of human memory. For example, they described “working memory” (using those words) as consisting of a verbal short-term store and a visual short-term store. In addition, using logic that still makes sense today, they justified the distinction between short-term store and long-term store based on the memory profile of the amnesic patient HM, whose verbal short-term store was largely intact despite his inability to form long-term memories. Finally, they explained that some “coding processes” are more effective than others in transferring information from short-term store to long-term store, a perspective that is consistent with the subsequently proposed notion of “depth of processing.” Given its preeminent status in the history of human memory research and its enduring influence on the field today, Atkinson and Shiffrin’s 1968 chapter is reproduced here so that students of memory, including textbook writers, can better appreciate the surprisingly modern ideas they actually proposed.