Evaluation

• One strength is the evidence from the famous case study HM and Clive Wearing- episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage. But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected. They still understood the meaning of words. Their procedural memories were also intact, they both knew how to walk and speak. This evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in LTM
• A counterpoint to the case study of HM is that they lack control variables- The brain injuries experienced by pps were usually unexpected. The researcher had no way of controlling what happened to the pps before or during the injury. The researcher has no knowledge of the individuals memory before the damage. Without this, it is difficult to judge how much worse it is afterwards.
• Another strength is that understanding LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems- for example, as people age, they experience memory loss. But research has show this seems to be specific to episodic memory- it becomes harder to recall memories of personal events that occurred relatively recently though past episodic memories remain intact. This shows that distinguishing different types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed