Types of long term memory

• What are the three types of long term memory?

  Episodic, procedural and semantic
• What has research suggested about the three types?

  That semantic and episodic are consciously retrieved where as procedural is unconscious
• What is episodic memory?

  Personal memories for events in our lives
• What are we likely to remember about episodic memories?

  When it happened, who we were with, emotion and context of event
• What is an example of an episodic memory?


  a family holiday
• What is semantic memory?

  Shared knowledge about the world or meanings of words
• What do semantic memories tend to be?

  They tend not to be personal and are formed through learning experiences - we don’t tend to recall when we first discovered the information
• What are some examples of semantic memory?

  Knowing information about maths, cities or social etiquette
• What is procedural memory?

  Memories involved in the performance of a task or skill
• What is procedural memory often referred to?

  Muscle memory because when we practice a task or skill enough it becomes automatic and does not require conscious though
• What is an example of a procedural memory?

  Riding a bike
• What did evidence from brain scans show?

  That different areas of the Brain were activated for different types of LTM
• What was activated for semantic and episodic?

  Hippocampus, temporal and frontal lobes
• What is procedural memory associated with?

  Cerebellum, limbic System and basal ganglia
• What does the evidence from brain scans suggest?

  That different parts of the LTM are separate and rely on different areas of the brain
• How can it be applied to the real world?

  We can developed specific types of treatments for impairments because we can distinguish between the types of LTM
• What is an example of real world application?

  Older people with mild cognitive impairments were given episodic memory training tasks and later showed better recall then the group who had no training
• What is the problem with evidence from brain damage?

  Damage to a particular area does not necessarily mean that part of the brain is responsible for an impaired behaviour
• What could it be instead?

  The part of the brain could be working as a relay station and damage to such would impair performance