Fiducia TogetherMemory
How information is encoded, stored and retrieved — and why it fails.
Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.
What it is
The multi-store model describes sensory, short-term and long-term memory. The working memory model breaks short-term memory into components. Forgetting is explained by decay, interference and retrieval failure.
Where it applies
GCSE and A Level psychology.
How it works
Short-term memory is limited in capacity and duration; long-term memory is effectively unlimited but reconstructive — memories are rebuilt on recall, not replayed, which is why they change.
Eyewitness testimony research follows directly from that, and so does retrieval practice.
How to use it in your work
Name the model and the researcher.
Use the reconstructive nature of memory to explain eyewitness unreliability, and name a study.
Apply it to revision — the testing effect is memory research, and saying so is good application.
Where to get help
Your teacher and your board's specification and mark scheme.
Revise this with a song
These are ours. We write revision songs because a lot of people remember a tune when they cannot remember a page, and because revising out loud in the kitchen beats staring at a highlighter.
- The Psychology Song The GCSE and A Level psychology topics, set to music.
Where to read more
Last reviewed 2026-08-28 by Fiducia Together · Next review due 2027-08-28
Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.