Evaluation of the types of Long Term Memory

• Clinical Evidence: Case studies support that there are different types of Long-Term Memories.
• Clive Wearing provides evidence for the distinction between different types of LTM.


  • Episodic memory was severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia. They couldn't remember events that happened to them in the past.
  • However their semantic memories were largely unaffected e.g., they could still remember the meanings of words.
  • Procedural memories were also intact. He knew how to tie his shoe laces how to walk and how to speak and he used to be a professional musician, how to read music, sing and play the piano.

  
• Neuroimaging evidence

  Evidence from brain scan studies show there are different LTM stores.
• Tulving et al (1994)


  Got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner.

  • The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recall of semantic memories
  • The right prefrontal cortex is where episodic memories were recalled. Episodic memories are associated with the hippocampus and other parts of the temporal lobe.
  • Procedural memories are associated with the cerebellum

  This supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM within the brain.

  
• Real Life Application

  Being able to identify different aspects of LTM allows psychologists to target certain kinds of memory in order to better people's lives.

  Belleville et al (2006) demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had mild cognitive impairment. The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memories than the control group who were not trained.

  Episodic memories are usually the ones affected by mild cognitive impairments - specific treatments can be made.
• However...

  there are problems with clinical evidence. There is a serious lack of control or different variables in these studies that we cannot control e.g. location of brain damage or personality variables. So, it is difficult to generalise from case studies.