50 years of research sparked by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

In this article we review the framework proposed in 1968 by Atkinson and Shiffrin. We discuss the prior context that led to its production, including the advent of cognitive and mathematical modeling, its principal concepts, the subsequent refinements and elaborations that followed, and the way that the framework influenced other researchers to test the ideas and, in some cases, propose alternatives. The article illustrates the large amount of research and the large number of memory models that were directly influenced by this chapter over the past 50 years.

This issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of the publication of the chapter by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin titled “Human Memory: A Proposed System and Its Control Processes.” Many scientists have been introduced to what is often called “the modal model” in an Introductory Psychology course. Many have cited the chapter in their publications, usually in reference to the proposed distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory. However, the focus of the chapter’s 100 print pages was an investigation of the role of control processes in all memory systems for both storage and retrieval. The chapter contained many studies of rehearsal in particular and used careful modeling to demonstrate the validity of the concepts. A review of those modeling efforts reveals them to be state-of-the-art today, uncovering, testing, and verifying fundamental processes of rehearsal, storage, and retrieval.

In the first part of this article we describe the historical context for Atkinson and Shiffrin’s chapter, summarize its main concepts, and review briefly the data and the quantitative models that gave support to the theory. In the second part we summarize some of the subsequent developments that in some instances refined and developed the concepts and theory and in other instances led researchers and theorists to pose alternatives.