Types of long-term memory

• What is episodic memory?

  • Our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives
  • 'Time-stamped' - we can remember when they happened, what happened, objects, people involved, etc.
  • A conscious effort is required to recall these memories
• What is semantic memory?

  • Contains our knowledge of the world, including facts and our understanding of concepts and definitions
  • Not time-stamped and usually need to be recalled deliberately
• What is procedural memory?

  • Our knowledge of how to perform specific tasks or procedures including memories of our learned skills
  • We can recall these without conscious awareness as our skills become automatic through repetition and practice
• What is one strength of types of long-term memory?

  • Case study of HM and Clive Wearing: both men suffered brain damage from an operation which impaired their episodic memories, however their semantic and procedural memories were still intact
  • HM could not remember stroking a dog half an hour earlier but did not need the concept of a dog explained to him - Clive could still sing and play the piano
  • Supports Tulving (1985)'s view that there are separate long-term memory stores
• What is another strength of types of long-term memory?

  • Real-world application: research shows that memory loss with age seems to be specific to new episodic memories
  • Belleville et al. (2006): made an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people - her trained participants did better on a test of episodic memory than a control group
  • Shows that the distinction between LTM stores enables specific treatments to be developed
• What is one limitation of types of long-term memory?

  • Contrasting neuroimaging evidence: Buckner and Petersen (1996) concluded that semantic memories are stored on the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memories on the right side
  • BUT Tulving et al. (1994)'s research says the left PFC is for encoding episodic memories and the right PFC is for episodic memory retrieval
  • Challenges evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located
• What is another limitation of types of long-term memory?

  • Lack of control: although studying people with brain injuries can help researchers understand how memory is meant to work normally, clinical studies lack control over important variables
  • Researchers have no knowledge of what the participant's memory was like before the damage making it difficult to judge exactly how worse it is after
  • Limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM