Types of long term memory

• What are the types of long term memory

  Tulving,1985, was one of the first to realise that the multi store model's view of Long term memory was too simplistic and inflexible. He proposed that there are three long term memory stores containing different types of information:

  • episodic memory
  • semantic memory
  • procedural memory
• What is episodic memory 


  Episodic memory describes those memories which have some kind of personal meaning to us alongside details as to when and how these events occurred as well as the associated people and places. They are time stamped and you have to make a conscious effort to recall them.
• What is semantic memory

  semantic memory describes our memories of the world and the associated knowledge e.g. an understanding of what words themes and concepts mean. These memories are less personal and an example would be the ability to use information to one concept to help us understand the another.
• What is procedural memory


  procedural memories describe our memories of 'learned skills' such as swimming or driving. Recall occurs without awareness or effort
• how are the different types of memory recalled

  episodic and semantic memories must be recalled consciously whereas procedural memories are recalled unconsciously
• What is a strength of the the types of long term memory as proposed by Tulving 1958


  A strength is that there is research support Petersen et al demonstrated that semantic memories were recalled form the left prefrontal cortex whilst episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. This supports not only the idea that there are different types of long term memory but shows that they each have a different neurological basis because they are recalled from different parts of the brain. Having research supporting the neurological basis of different parts of the brain increases the credibility of these explanations because it allows psychologists during the development of therapies to ensure these therapies are targeting the proximal causes for degraded memory functioning and make sure that the appropriate neurological structures of the brain are stimulated to ensure treatments are effective
• What is another strength of the types of long term memory 


  A strength is that there is a practical application in being able to differentiate between different types of LTM. For example Belleville et al notes that mild cognitive impairments most commonly affect episodic memories and so an increased understanding of episodic memory alongside the differences different types of long term memory may lead to improved increasingly targeted treatments for mild cognitive impairments this ability for it to be practically applied means that the explanations have good explanatory power because they have been used to formulate theories and these theories have been able to be used outside the research setting that they developed in. Therefore these theories have high ecological validity.
• What is a strength of the different types of long term memory

  A strength is that the cases of HM and Clive Wearing show how one type of LTM may be impaired but other types of LTM will be unaffected e.g. Clive Wearing was still able to skillfully play the piano and understand the concept of music (procedural and semantic) but was unable to remember his wife visiting him 5 minutes previously (episodic). This gives strong support to the idea that different areas of the brain are involved in the different types of LTM and confirms the classification of different types of LTM are separate
• this explanation

  This explanation has adopted an idiographic approach whereby in-depth qualitative methods of investigation have been used to study the functions of different areas of the brain in these two individuals this in depth methods of investigation ensures that functions are accurately found. This may also complement the nomothetic approach by shedding further light on general laws and principles or may perhaps challenge pre existing laws and principles for example in the case of HM his study may have generated hypotheses for further study to gain further knowledge important insights about the functioning of his brain may contribute to our overall understanding
• However

  meaningful generalisations cannot be made without further examples as there is no adequate baseline for which behaviour can be compared. These methods also tend to be less scientific in that conclusion may often rely on the subjective interpretation of the researcher and are therefore open to bias