Types of long term memory:

• What is episodic memory:

  • Episodic memory refers to our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives. Likened to a diary, a record of our daily happenings.
  • For example, your most recent visit to the dentist, a gig you went to last week, the psychology class you had yesterday, the breakfast you ate this morning.
• More on the episodic memory:

  • 'Time Stamped'- you remember when they happened
  • Memory of a single episode will include several elements, such as people and places, objects and behaviours, and all of them are interwoven to produce a single memory.
  • You make a conscious effort to recall episodic memories. You may be able to do so quickly, but you are still aware that you are searching for your memory|
• What is the semantic memory?

  • This store contains facts and our knowledge of the world
  • Likened to a combination of an encyclopaedia and a dictionary
  • For example, knowledge of such things as; applying to university, the taste of an orange, and the meaning of words
• More on the semantic memory:

  • Meaning of words is important. Your semantic memory contains knowledge of an impressive number of concepts such as 'animals' 'Justin Bieber' and 'love'
  • These memories are not 'time-stamped'. We don't usually remember when we first learned about Justin Bieber, for example
  • Semantic knowledge is less personal and more about facts we all share. It contains an immense collection of material which, given its nature, is constantly being added to.
• What is the procedural memory?

  • This is our memory for actions, or skills, or how we do things
  • We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort.
  • A good example is driving a car. Our ability to do this (eventually) depends on procedural memory.
• More on the procedural memory:

  • We change gear without having to recall how. We indicate left or right at a junction without even realising we've done so.
  • These are the sort of skills we might even find quite hard to explain to someone else. If you try to describe what you are doing as you drive the car, the task may well become more difficult.
• Who are the two individuals providing supporting clinical evidence for memory stores?

  HM and Clive Wearing
• What type of memory was severely impaired in HM and Clive Wearing?

  Episodic memory due to amnesia
• What difficulty did HM and Clive Wearing experience?

  Recalling past events from their lives
• Which type of memory remained relatively unaffected in HM and Clive Wearing?

  Semantic memory
• What procedural memories did HM and Clive Wearing retain?

  How to tie shoelaces and talk
• What unique skill did Clive Wearing retain that HM did not?

  Playing the piano
• What does the evidence from HM and Clive Wearing support regarding memory stores?

  There are different memory stores in LTM
• What is the implication of one memory store being damaged?

  Other memory stores can remain unaffected
• What are the key findings from the clinical evidence of HM and Clive Wearing?

  • Both had impaired episodic memory
  • Semantic memories were relatively intact
  • Procedural memories remained unaffected
  • Supports Tulving's theory of separate memory stores
• Evaluation: counterpoint

  P- Studying people with braun injuries can help researchers to understand how memory is supposed to work normally

  E- But clinical studies are not perfect. A major limitation is that they lack control of variables.

  E- the Brain injuries experienced by participants were usually unexpected. The researcher had no way of controlling what happened to the participant before or during the injury.

  L- This lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM.
• Evaluation: further supporting evidence

  P- There is further supporting evidence for the existence of separate LTM stores form neuroimaging evidence.

  E- Tulving got their ppts to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner. They found that episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from an area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex.

  E- This area is divided in two, one on each side of the brain.

  L- The strength of this finding is that it supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM, within the brain.
• What is one strength of research into types of LTM?

  It has real-life applications
• How does identifying different aspects of LTM benefit psychologists?

  It allows targeting specific memory types
• What did Belleville demonstrate regarding episodic memories?

  They can be improved in older people
• What was the outcome for trained participants in Belleville's study?

  They performed better on episodic memory tests
• What type of memory is most often affected by mild cognitive impairment?

  Episodic memory
• Why is it beneficial to distinguish between types of LTM?

  It enables specific treatments to be developed
• What is the focus of Belleville's research?

  Older people with mild cognitive impairment
• What does the ability to distinguish between types of LTM allow psychologists to do?

  Develop specific treatments for memory issues
• Evaluation: different or same stores?

  P- One weakness of research into types of LTM is that some psychologists challenge the difference between the stores.

  E- Tulving has taken the view that episodic memory is a 'specialised subcategory' of semantic memory.

  E- Hodges and Patterson found some people with Alzheimer's disease could form new episodic memories but not semantic memories.

  L- this suggests that the distinction between the stores is not as initially thought.