Types of long-term memory

• what did Tulving realise?

  that the multi store model's view of long term memory was too simplistic and inflexible
• what type of psychologist was Tulving?

  cognitive
• what did Tulving propose?

  that there are three long term memory stores
• what are the three long term memory stores?

  episodic, semantic, procedural
• what does episodic memory refer to?

  our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives.
• what has episodic memory been likened to?

  a diary - a record of daily personal experiences
• how are episodic memories?

  time stamped - you remember when they happened as well as what happened
• what do episodic memories also store information about?

  how events relate to each other in time
• what will a memory of a single episode include?

  several elements, such as people and places, objects and behaviours - all of these memories are interwoven to produce a single memory
• what do you have to do to recall episodic memories?

  make conscious effort - you do this quickly, but you are still aware that you are searching for your memory of the event
• what does the semantic memory store contain?

  our shared knowledge of the world
• what has our semantic memory been likened to?

  a combination of an encyclopaedia and a dictionary
• what does semantic memory include?

  knowledge of such things - knowledge of an impressive number of concepts
• what are semantic memories not?

  not time stamped
• what is semantic knowledge considered?

  less personal and more about the facts we all share
• what is semantic memory less vulnerable to, according to Tulving?

  less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory
• what is procedural memory?

  memory for actions, or skills or how we do things
• how do we recall procedural memory?

  without conscious awareness or much effort
• what is a good example of procedural memory?

  how we drive our car - our ability to do this becomes automatic through practice, we change gear without having to recall how, we indicate left or right without even realising we've done so
• what happens if you try to describe a skill or action?


  it becomes difficult
• strength - evidence from case studies such as HM and Clive Wearing

  - episodic memory was severely impaired due to brain damage but semantic memory was relatively unaffected

  
  

  - they still understood the meaning of words

  
  

  -HM could not recall stroking a dog 30 minutes before but knew what the concept of 'dog' was

  
  

  - their procedural memories were also intact as they both still knew how to walk and speak and Clive Wearing knew how to read music, sing and play the piano

  
  

  this evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in long term memory - one store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected
• limitation - there are conflicting research findings linking types of long term memory to areas of the brain

  - Buckner and Petersen reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory

  
  

  - they concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right

  
  

  - however, other research links the left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval

  
  

  this challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type may be located
• strength - understanding types of long term memory allows psychologists to help people with memory problems

  - for example, as people age, they experience memory loss

  
  

  - but research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory - it becomes harder to recall memories of personal events/experiences that occurred relatively recently though past episodic memories remain intact

  
  

  - Belleville devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people

  
  

  - the trained ppts performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group

  
  

  this shows that distinguishing between types of long term memory enables specific treatments to be developed