Memory - types of long term memory

• who proposed three long term memory stores?

  tulving 1985
• what are the three long term memory stores? episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory
• what is episodic memory? - recalling events from our personal lives

  - they are time stamped (when and what)

  - have to consciously recall episodic memories
• example of episodic memory: remembering your first day of school
• what does the episodic memory include? several elements (people, places, objects, behaviours)

  these produce a single memory
• what is the semantic memory? - shared knowledge of the world

  - not time stamped

  - less personal

  - shared facts

  - less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than the episodic memory
• example of the semantic memory: how to apply to university
• what is the procedural memory? - memory for actions/skills

  - recalled without conscious effort
• example of the procedural memory:


  driving
• strength - P - evidence from tumours case studies of HM and Clive wearing: E - episodic memory in both men were impaired due to brain damage but their semantic memories were in tact so they still understood the meaning of words

  E.G HM couldn't remember stroking a dog 10 mins earlier but he knew what a dog was

  Procedural memories were in tact as they knew his to walk talk and sing

  T - this supports tulvings view that there are 3 diff memory stores
• Counterpoint to HM and Clive wearing strength: P - clinical studies are not perfect

  E - lack control variables

  - brain injuries were unexpected so researchers couldn't control what happened before and after surgery

  - didn't know anything about their memory before the damage

  T - lack of control limits what clinical studies tell us about types of LTM
• Strength - P - understanding LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems: E - as people age memory worsens

  - seems to be specific to episodic memory (hard to recall recent personal events but past episodic memory remains in tact)

  Belleville 2006 devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people

  Pps performed better on episodic memory test than control group

  T - distinguishing between LTM enables specific treatments to develop - so has real world application
• Limitation - P - conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain: E - Buckner and Peterson 1996 reviewed evidence regarding location of semantic and episodic memory

  - concluded that semantic memory is located on the left side of the pre frontal cortex and episodic on the right

  However other research links the left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval (tulving et al 1994)