long term memory

• semantic - facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the world e.g. a bike has two wheels
• declarative or explicit memory - consciously recalled and can be put into words
• episodic - memory of experiences and specific events
• procedural - unconscious memory of skills also known as muscle memory
• episodic (declarative): time stamped stored with reference to time and place Recalled consciously so explicit
• semantic (declarative): may not recall when learnt/ encoded Recalled consciously so explicit
• procedural(non-declarative): often learnt in childhood
• procedural(not autobiographical): not recalled consciously so performed implicitly
• • vargha khadem et al (1997) investigated three young patients who had damage to their hippocampus but avoided significant damage to the nearby paraphippocampal cortices
  • it was found all three had very significant episodic amnesia,
  • however all are able to attend school, speak and can learn and recall factual information at an ability level just below average for their age
  • suggests that semantic memory is less dependant on the hippocampus than episodic memory
• • the use of ideographic research such as clive wearing allows researchers to study memory in a way that would be impossible experimentally
  • however there are problems generalising the findings of these clinical case studies with one or few individuals, to explaining how memory works in the wider population
  • there could be other unknown issues unique to that individual that can explain the behaviour