any conceptualization of memory as involving the progressive transfer of information through a system, much as a computer manipulates information in order to store, retrieve, and generate responses to it. The most popular model is that proposed in 1968 by U.S. cognitive psychologists Richard C. Atkinson and Richard M. Shiffrin (1942– ). Sometimes also referred to as the multistore model or the three-stage model, their theory views memory as a system with three distinct components—sensory memory, which collects and transforms material; short-term memory, which temporarily holds material; and long-term memory, which more permanently retains material and recalls it as needed—that sequentially process information through the stages of encoding, storage, and retrieval. Each component differs in how much material it can hold and for how long, as well as the
mechanisms by which it operates. Control processes govern informational flow, memory search, output of responses, and so forth. Compare connectionist model.