A03

• What are the strengths of types of LTM?

  1. Clinical evidence
  2. Real-life application
• What are the limitations of types of LTM?

  1. Debate over division into three types
  2. Conflicting neuroimaging evidence
• Strength = clinical evidence

  • Evidence from case studies of HM and Clive Wearing support separate types of LTM
  • Episodic, in both cases, was severely impaired but semantic relatively unaffected
  • They understood the meaning of words e.g. HM couldn’t recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier but understood the concept of ‘dog’
  • Procedural memories also intact - both knew how to walk and speak and Clive play the piano
• Strength = real-life applications

  • Being able to identify different aspects of LTM allows psychologists to target certain kinds of memory in order to better people’s lives
  • Being able to distinguish between the types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed
  • Belleville et al. (2006) found that episodic memories can be improved in older people who have a mild cognitive impairment
  • The participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group
• Limitation = conflicting neuroimaging evidence

  • Conflicting research findings from brain scanning studies linking types of LTM to areas of the brain
  • Buckner and Petersen (1996) reviewed evidence regarding location of semantic and episodic memory
  • Concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic on the right
  • However, other research links left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval
• Limitation = debate about division into 3 types

  • Some researchers have disagreed with division and found evidence which suggests episodic and semantic memories are stored together
  • Cohen and Squire (1980) suggest procedural memories represent one type of LTM but that episodic and semantic are stored together in one LTM store they call declarative memory
  • Declarative memory = memories that can be consciously recalled
  • Procedural = non-declarative