Long-Term Memory

• Tulving, 1985

  He proposed 3 stores of the LTM:

  • episodic
  • procedural
  • semantic
• Episodic Memory - Explicit (Conscious)

  • an autobiographical record of personal experiences and events
  • usually easiest to remember as they are linked to senses meaning they're triggered by cues - different parts of memory are located in different parts of brain (e.g. images in visual area) but are connected together using hippocampus
  • this creates memory of an 'episode' and we have to consciously try and recall the memory
  • they are time-stamped which means we remember exactly when they occur

  Examples:

  • first day of school, your birthday party, a vacation
• Semantic Memory - Explicit (Conscious)

  • contains all knowledge (facts, concepts, meanings) a person has learned
  • the memories are not time-stamped
  • linked to episodic memories as we learn new knowledge through our experiences
  • need to be consciously recalled to enable us to produce and understand language

  Examples:

  • capital cities of countries, knowing 2+2=4, recognising a dog is a type of animal
• Procedural Memory - Implicit (Unconscious)

  • our ability to automatically perform learned tasks with little conscious thought
  • easy to perform but difficult to explain
  • important for daily functioning and helps perform cognitive and motor skills without awareness

  Examples:

  • riding a bike, tying your shoelaces, playing an instrument
• Strengths of Tulving's LTM theory

  Neuroimaging evidence:

  • brain scan studies
  • Tulving et al (1994) asked PPs to do different memory tasks whilst using a PET scanner
  • they found that episodic and semantic memories were in the prefrontal cortex (left - semantic and right - episodic)
  • shows credibility

  Real-life application:

  • psychologists can target certain memories to improve a PPs life
  • Belleville et al (2006) proved episodic memories can be improved through training elderly people with cognitive impairments to focus on their episodic memories
  • enables specific treatments to be used
• Weaknesses of Tulving's LTM theory

  Objections:

  • there is an overlap between episodic and semantic memories
  • in 2002, Tulving added to his theory by stating that an episodic memory is a specialised subcategory of semantic memories
  • this casts doubt on the claim that there are three types of LTM

  Research lacks control:

  • research into different types of LTM tends to use case studies (HM and Clive Wearing)
  • these studies lack generalisability and they were not tested prior to their illnesses/incident - therefore we cannot say for sure how their memories were affected