Bottom-up and Top-down Flows of Information Within Auditory Memory: Electrophysiological Evidence
Erich Schröger, Mari H. Tervaniemi, Minna Huotilainen · 2004
In their multistore model, Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) postulate the existence of three separate stages of memory. These stages have been identified in terms ofcapacity for the number of items to be included and for the duration for which this information is held in an active state. The sensory register may contain a large amount of information for a very brief period of approximately 100-200 ms. The short-term store has a capacity of approximately three to nine that which survive for approximately 10-20 s. The long-term store has an almost unlimited capacity and its duration is mainly restricted by the functionality of the brain in which it is held. The flow of information between these separate stores is assumed to happen from the sensory register to the short-term and then to the long-term store or directly from the sensory register to the long-term store. Feedback loops are confined from long-term back to the short-term store; the sensory register does not receive input from other memory stores. In their single-store model, Shiffrin and Schneider (1977) claimed the existence of only one memory system consisting of different levels of processing. The role of the sensory register is taken as an initial, automatic encoding process that reflects early levels of processing within this unitary memory-storage system. These early encoding levels do not receive input from higher levels. In his hybrid memory model, Cowan (1988, 1995) postulated two different sensory stores. One exists within the long-term store and is regarded as activated sensory features of the long-term store. The other precedes processing occurring in the long-term store and is assumed to operate rather automatically, in the sense that the information computed in this store can be delivered to the longterm store but not vice versa.