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Memory is not one skill but several separate systems, and knowing which system a scenario is testing changes how you interpret it. The multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin) proposes information flows through three stages: sensory memory (a fleeting trace lasting under a second), short-term memory (a limited, brief-holding store), and long-term memory (a durable, effectively unlimited store). For example, imagine reading a phone number just long enough to dial it, that brief hold is short-term memory, not long-term memory, even though you saw the number seconds earlier. Distinguishing which store, sensory, short-term, or long-term, is in play is often exactly what an exam question tests.

Short-term memory has a limited capacityA person's ability to understand, weigh up, and use relevant information to make a specific decision.Read more →, classically described by Miller as 7±2 items (roughly five to nine), though it can be extended by chunking related information together. Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model refines short-term memory into active, manipulable components: a central executive (an attention-controlling supervisor that allocates resources), a phonological loop (holds verbal and sound-based information), and a visuospatial sketchpad (holds visual and spatial information). Long-term memory splits into declarative memory and non-declarative, or procedural, memory. Declarative memory is explicit and consciously recollected, further divided into episodic memory for personal events and semantic memory for general knowledge. Non-declarative memory is implicit, skills and habits performed without conscious recall, such as riding a bicycle. Recall is retrieving information with no cues, e.g. an open free-text exam question, while recognition is identifying information from options already presented, e.g. a multiple-choice question. For example, imagine a patient who can no longer form new episodic memories but can still learn a new motor skill through practice, that dissociationA disconnection between a person's thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity, often as a response to stress.Read more → is why episodic and procedural memory are considered separate systems. In practice, this means memory assessment should specify which store or system is affected, rather than describing 'memory' as one uniform ability.

• Which component was added to the working memory model after the original three?
• A volunteer recalls the first and last items of a word list better than those in the middle. What is this pattern called?
• After a head injury a man cannot form new memories but recalls his childhood normally. Which pattern is this?

• Short-term memory, limited capacityA person's ability to understand, weigh up, and use relevant information to make a specific decision.Read more → (7±2 items) and brief, unlike long-term memory's effectively unlimited, durable store.
• Declarative (episodic/semantic) memory, consciously recollected facts and events, whereas non-declarative/procedural memory is implicit skill learned without conscious recall.
• Recall, retrieving information with no cues, rather than recognition, which is identifying information from options already presented.
• Working memory, active manipulation of held information, unlike short-term memory's simple passive storage.

• The central executive was part of the original model.
• The phonological loop was one of the two original slave systems.
• The visuospatial sketchpad was the other original slave system.
• Sensory memory belongs to the Atkinson-Shiffrin multi-store model.
• The von Restorff effect is better recall of a distinctive item.

• Name the learning, social or research principle being tested before reading the options.
• Identify the antecedent, behaviour, consequence or cognitive process in the vignette.
• Compare the direction of effect with the nearest competing principle.
• Apply the same rule to a new example to confirm that the answer transfers.