Types of LTM

• What are the three types of LTM?

  -episodic-semantic-procedural
• Episodic

  Memories that have some kind of personal meaning to us e.g. wedding or first time meeting your bff etc
• Semantic

  Describe our memories of the world and the associated knowledge e.g. understanding what words, concepts, themes mean
• Procedural

  Memories of learned skills e.g. swimming, driving etc
• How are the types of LTM recalled?

  -Episodic and Semantic memories are recalled consciously -Procedural memories are recalled unconsciously.
• Evaluation (Strength)

  One strength of Tulving's types of LTM is that evidence supports this view:

  This means that there is clinical evidence from case studies of brain damaged patients to suggest LTM is indeed made up of separate types of LTM. Evidence comes from the case of Clive Wearing. He was a highly talented musician who contracted a viral infection causing extensive brain damage. He lost his long term memory (e.g. he has no memory of his wedding) but still has use of his long term memory (e.g. he can still play piano).

  This supports the idea of different types of LTM because Clive Wearing's Long term memory can still be used which suggests there are separate types of LTM.
• Evaluation (Limitation)

  However, there are problems with evidence from brain damaged patients:

  This means that, because cases of brain damaged patients are relatively rare, they may not represent the way memory functions in everyone. For example, Clive Wearing's LTM may function slightly differently to most other people's LTM. This is a problem because it suggests evidence from case studies such as this may not generalise to everyone, reducing the ecological validity of the research and limiting the extent to which we can draw conclusions about the types of LTM from this kind of research alone.
• Evaluation (Strength) - validity

  Furthermore, physiological evidence from brain scans also supports the idea of different types of LTM:

  This means PET scans have been able to show different areas of the brain were active when participants were required to use different types of memory. For example, Tulving et al (1994) found that episodic and sematic memories were recalled from different sides of the prefrontal cortex whilst procedural memory is associated with the cerebellum (which is involved in controlling fine motor skills). This is positive as it supports the view that there are different types of LTM that may even be physically separate.