LTM

•  SEMANTIC MEMORY

  · LTM store for our knowledge oof the world

  · Including facts + knowledge of what words/concepts mean 

  · Not time-stamped – don’t remember when we first hear about the knowledge 

  · Retrieved consciously – with effort

  · E.g. Meanings of words

  · Brain areas involved: 

  - hippocampus

  - coding associated with frontal + temporal lobes 

   
• 1. PROCEDURAL MEMORY 

  · LTM store for our knowledge of how to do things 

  · Includes memories of learned skills

  · Recalled unconsciously- without deliberate effort 

  · E.g. driving a car 

  · Brain areas involved: 

  - Primary motor cortex

  - Cerebellum

  - Prefrontal cortex 
• · LIMITATION – idea of different LTM stores relies on use of case studies, like Clive Wearing and Henry Molaison, who suffered from brain injuries. Case studies lack control of variables. brain injuries experienced by participants usually unexpected. researcher had no way of controlling what had happened to the participants before / during the injury. researcher had no knowledge of the individual’s memory before damage. Without this, difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards. Lack of control limits what case studies tell us about different types of LTM. 
• · STRENGTH – research to support from case studies Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing. episodic memory of both men severely impacted due to brain damage. semantic memories unaffected. still understood meaning of words. HM couldn’t recall stroking a dog, but didn’t need word `dog` defined to him. CW retained information on how to sing + read sheet music. supports idea of multiple LTM stores as we can see retainment of certain memory stores, demonstrating 3 memory components are individual, separate from each other. 
• · STRENGTH – real work application. Understanding types of LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems. E.g. as people age, they experience memory loss. Research has sown this is specific to episodic memory – harder to recall personal events that occurred more recently, however past episodic memories remain intact. Showing that distinguishing between types of LTM would enable specific treatments to be developed. 
• The episodic memory = store for personal events. includes memories of when an event occurred, objects + people involved. declarative, implicit meaning we recall when and what happened and has to be retrieved conciously, with deliberate effort (e.g what we ate 4 breakfast). coding for the episodic memory is associated with the pre-frontal cortex, with memories of different parts of the event being located in corresponding areas, these different parts are all connected via the hippocampus forming an’episode’ rather than small parts of one memory.