types of long-term memory

• Tulving realised the multi-store model's view of long-term memory was too simplistic and inflexible.

  • episodic
  • semantic
  • procedural
• episodic memory

  = long-term memory store for personal events. It includes memories of when the events occurred and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved.

  • memories have to be retrieved consciously and with effort.
  • memories are time-stamped= remember when they happened as well as what happened.
• semantic memory

  = long-term memory store for our knowledge of the world, included facts and knowledge of what words and concepts mean.

  • memories need to be recalled deliberately.
  • memories are not time stamped
  • less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory.
• procedural memory

  = long-term memory store for our knowledge of how to do things, included learned skills.

  • don't need to make a conscious effort to recall memories.
• Evaluation- clinical evidence

  = evidence from a famous case study of HM and Wearing.

  • Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage. But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected- still understood the meaning of words. eg: HM couldn't remember stroking a dog half an hour ago but didn't need to have the concept of dog explained.
• continued

  • procedural memories also intact- knew how to walk+ speak. eg: Wearing- professional musician still could read music+ play piano.
  • supports Tulving's idea that there are different memory stores in LTM- one can be damaged but another store is unaffected.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  = studying people with brain injuries can help researchers to understand how memory is supposed to work normally.

  • Limitation= they lack control of variables, brain injuries experienced by participants are unexpected. Researchers had no way of controlling what happened to the participant before or during the injury.
  • Researcher had no knowledge of the individual's memory before the damage. - otherwise it's difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards.
  • lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM
• Evaluation- conflicting neuroimaging evidence

  limitation= there are conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain.

  • eg: Buckner and Petersen concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic on the right.
  • however other research links the left prefrontal cortex with episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with semantic memories.
  • this challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located.
• Evaluation- real world application

  strength= understanding types of LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems.

  • eg: as people age they experience memory loss. But research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory- it becomes harder to recall memories of personal experiences that occurred relatively recently through past episodic memories remain intact.
• continued

  • Belleville devised an intervention to improve episodic memory in older people. Trained participants performed better on test of episodic memory after training than a control group.
  • shows that distinguishing between different types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.