LONG TERM MEMORY

• TULVING (1985) - believed that the MSM was too simplistic and proposed the idea that the LTM had 3 stores, containing several types of information, including episodic, semantic, and procedural memory. 
• Declarative memory

  Episodic memory

  Semantic memory
• Non-declarative memory

  Procedural memory
• Declarative memory – memories you can consciously recall 

  Non-declarative memory – memories you do not consciously think about 
• Episodic memory – memories for events e.g. birthdays – this type of memory is often autobiographical and is strengthened through emotions. 
• Semantic memory – memory for knowledge – not always time-stamped. We do not often recall when we first remembered such facts. 
• Procedural memory – knowledge of how to do things unconsciously. 
• Strength (1)


  ✅ One strength of our understanding around different LTMs is the supportive clinical evidence such as HM and Wearing. As a result of his amnesia, their episodic memory was severely impaired but their semantic and procedural memory was unaffected. This helps to understand how memories work. HOWEVER, we do not know if Hm and Wearing had impaired episodic memory prior to their accident. Therefore, the research does provide evidence for several types of LTMs but there are issues with the validity of the cases. 
• Strength (2)


  ✅ Neuroimaging evidence from brain scan studies. BADNER AND PETERSON (1996) found episodic and semantic memories were both recalled form an area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex. This area is divided in two.The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic and episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that different areas of the brain are activated when recalling a particular type of memory. HOWEVER, there is conflicting evidence that short term memory is linked to the prefrontal cortex.
• Strength (3)


  ✅Allows psychologists to help people with memory problems. For example, as people age, their memory decreases. Research has shown that this seems specific to episodic memory – more difficult to recall recent events but past episodic memories remain intact. BELLEVILLE ET AL devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people. The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group. This shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed to improve memory. 
• Limitation (1)


  ❌ A limitation of clinical evidence which support the existence of several types of LTM is the issues associated with clinical evidence. For example, there is a lack of control of all sorts of different variables in clinical studies. There are a limited number of cases where we can assess issues with LTMs. Therefore, we cannot generalise the results from these cases because individuals are all different.