types of LTM

• which psychologist realized the the MSM is too simplistic and inflexible

  Tulving (1985)
• what did Tulving realize about the MSM

  he was one of the first cognitive psychologist to realize the MSM view of LTM was too simplistic and inflexible
• what did Tulving propose about the LTM

  he proposed that there are 3 LTM stores containing quite different types of infomation
• what are the 3 different stores of the LTM

  • episodic
  • sematic
  • procedural
• what type of memory is episodic memory

  a type of LTM for events from our lives that include infomation related to time and place and they are declarative
• what does declarative mean

  available for conscious inspection (easy to describe)
• what are 3 examples of episodic memory

  • i remember my first day of school
  • i remember my first shift at work
  • i remember my first concert
• what is semantic memory

  a type of LTM that contains knowledge about the world, including facts and general knowledge - meaning words, rules, and knowledge about objects, places and behaviour and they are declarative
• what are 3 examples of semantic memory

  • i remember the colours of the rainbow
  • i remember the capital of England is London
  • i remember the 7x tables
• what is procedural memory

  a type of LTM that contains memories of how to do things and are not declarative
• what are 3 examples of procedural memory

  • i remember how to ride a horse
  • i remember how to swim
  • i remember how to get to college
• what is the clinical evidence for the different types of LTM

  the case of Clive wearing
• what did Clive Wearing suffer from

  amnesia
• who is the only person that Clive Wearing recognizes

  his wife
• how short is Clive Wearing memory

  30 seconds
• does Clive Wearing remember his children and why do you think this might be

  his sematic LTM is intact and is is a fact he has kids so he does remember he has them but does not remember who they are ot there names as his episodic memory is damaged
• how does Clive Wearing react when he sees his wife?

  claps and hugs her. it is like he is seeing her for the first time in a very long time
• what is one of the few albitites that Clive Wearing still has and what does shows about LTM

  Clive Wearing can still tie his tie and thus shows his procedural LTM is intact which shows the memory is no 1 unitary store and more complex then the MSM
• which one of Clive Wearing LTM stores seem to be damaged and which seem to be intact

  the episodic memory is damaged and the procedural and sematic memory is intact
• why might researchers criticize Clive Wearing as a form of clinical evidence


  it is specific for one person and cannot be generalized to other people as it is extremely unique
• what evidence did Tulving use

  neuro-imaging evidence for ESP
• who made the evidence of the neuro-imaging evidence for ESP

  Tulving
• what was the aim of the neuro-imaging evidence for ESP

  to investigate the differences in the processing of episodic and sematic memory tasks
• what was the method of the neuro-imaging evidence for ESP

  • 6 volunteers were injected with a small amount of radio-active gold, which scanned to detect it location
  • Tulving was one of the ps along with his wife and a colleague
  • each ps performed 8 trials lasting 80 seconds, it involved 4 sematic and 4 episodic tasks in a randomized order
  • at a signal for a researcher the ps would begin thinking about a memory, the gold being injected after 60 seconds and the scanning beginning about 8 seconds later (once the gold tracer had arrived in the brian)
• what was the results of the neuro-imaging evidence for ESP

  • 3 ps produced inconclusive data
  • data from the other 3 ps showed consistent differences in cortical blood flow patterns between semantic and episodic thinking
  • there was greater activation in the right prefrontal cortex during thinking about episodic memories
  • there was greater activation in the left prefrontal cortex when thinking about semantic memories
• what is the conclusion of the neuro-imaging evidence for ESP

  this suggest that there are at least 2 different types of LTM and these processed differently in the brain
• which region of the brain was activated by the sematic memory

  the left prefrontal cortex
• which region of the brain was activated by the episodic memory

  right prefrontal cortex
• what is one strengths of the ESP (brain scans)

  P - a strength is that brain scan studies have shown that there are different and separate stores in the LTM

  E - Tulving injected Ps with radioactive gold and placed them in a scanner. He then asked them to recall either a sematic memory or an episodic memory

  E - it found that episodic memories activated the right prefrontal cortex in the brain and sematic memories activate the left prefrontal cortex

  L - this suggests that there are at least 2 different types of LTM and procced differently in the brain

  H - the study only has a small sample size of 6 ps and then only had 3 conclusive results
• what is one strengths of the ESP (Clinical evidence)

  P- another strength of episodic memory is that it is also supported by clinical evidence

  E - case studies such as Clive Wearing show there are different types of LTM such as procedural and episodic memories

  E - for example, Clive could remember procedural memories such as playing the piano but cannot remember episodic memories and cannot create new memories, such as he cannot remember his wedding day, as his episodic memory store is damaged

  L -this suggests that there are different memory stores in the LTM as one store may be damaged while another is intact
• what is a limitation of ESP (clinical evidence)

  P -a limitation is that there are problems with using clinical evidence

  E - An example of clinical evidence is Clive Wearing and he has an extremely unique case of amnesia and therefore should not be generalized to others as his memory is very different to the others memory

  E - additionally we have very little control over variable in clinical evidence such as confounding variable and the lack of control over these variables could lead to the finding being invalid

  L - this suggests that is is therefore difficult to generalize findings for such case studies to determine the exact state of the LTM