Evaluations - A03

• Support for LTM - has significant real world application, Belleville et al (2006) demonstrated episodic memories can be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment. Suggesting that if psychologists know about separate stores of LTM then treatment programmes can be developed to help. Thus increasing validity as research on LTM not just a research artefact.
• Support for LTM - Clive Wearing had extensive brain damage, lost his declarative memory (eg no memory of his wedding) however he still had functioning procedural memory (he could play piano) and had impaired episodic memory, suggesting that LTM not single component. LTM consists of multiple types of memories where one can be damaged while the other can function adequately. Thus increasing validity of LTM theory.
• Limitation for LTM - clinical case studies are not perfect as they lack control of variables, brain injuries patients experienced were totally unexpected so researcher had no control over what happened to patient before or during injury. Researcher has no knowledge of patients memory before damage making it difficult to judge how worse damage is afterwards. Case studies use small sample making it difficult to generalise findings to population, reducing validity of LTM findings.
• Support for LTM - neuro-imaging evidence to support LTM into 3 separate stores. Tulving et al (1969) asked participants to complete various memory tasks while scanning their brains using PET scans. Found that episodic memories recalled from the pre-frontal cortex and semantic memories recalled from the posterior region of cortex. Separate areas of the brain active providing physical evidence of different types of memories, thus increasing validity of LTM.