AO3 Types of Long-Term Memory

• / Clinical evidence

  • HM and Clive Wearing
  • Episodic memory in both was impaired due to amnesia
  • Semantic memories were relatively unaffected – they still understood the meaning of words
  • Could not remember having a dog, but knew what a dog was
  • Procedural memory was also intact as they knew how to tie their shoelaces
• / Brain scan studies

  • Tulving et al got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner
  • Found that episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex
  • Episodic was the right and Semantic was the left
  • Supports the view that there is a physical reality to different types of LTM
• / Real Life Applications

  • Belleville et al. demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment
  • The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after than a control group
  • Episodic memory is the type of memory most often affected by mild cognitive impairment
• X Problems with clinical evidence

  • the brain injuries like Clive Wearing and HM have provided useful information when memory is damaged
  • but there is a serious lack of control
  • therefore there could be confounding variables that affect the usefulness