Don’t need - Types Of Long-term Memory

Question 1

What is the LTM divided into?

Answer 1

Two main types:
Explicit (or declarative) memory - knowing that

Implicit (or procedural) memory - knowing how

Question 2

What are examples of explicit memories?

Answer 2

Episodic memories

Semantic memories

Question 3

What is an episodic memory?

Answer 3

Personal memories of events such as what you did yesterday or a teacher you liked.
This kind of memory includes contextual details plus emotional tone

Question 4

What are the characteristics of episodic memories?

Answer 4

Comes from the word episode
Concerned with personal experiences - family holiday, first day of school

May recall the time and place of such events as well as who was there

May recall the context surrounding the event - why you were there, what happened before/after

Question 5

What are episodes?

Answer 5

An event or a group of events occurring as part of a large sequence.

Question 6

What are the three elements of episodic memories?

Answer 6

Specific details of the event
The context
The emotion

Question 7

What is a semantic memory?

Answer 7

Shared memories for facts and knowledge.

These memories may be concrete, such as knowing that ice is made of water, or abstract, such as mathematical knowledge.

Question 8

What are the characteristics of semantic memories?

Answer 8

Knowing that - know that people of a certain age go to school and that 2+2=4 and that London is the capital of England.

Semantic memories are knowledge about the worlds shared by everyone.

May relate to things such as:
The functions of objects
What behaviours is appropriate
Abstract concepts, such as maths and language

Generally begin as episodic memories because we acquire knowledge based on personal experiences

Question 9

How do semantic memories form from episodic memories?

Answer 9

Generally begin as episodic memories because we acquire knowledge based on personal experiences.

There is a gradual transition from episodic to semantic memory where the memory slowly loses its association to particular events, so that the information can be generalised as a semantic memory.

Sometimes, however, people continue to have a strong recollection of when and where they learned a particular fact.

Question 10

What is a procedural memory?

Answer 10

Memory for how to do things, for example riding a bicycle or learning how to read.

Such memories are automatic as the result of repeated practice.

Question 11

What are the characteristics of procedural memory?

Answer 11

Concerned with skills - knowing how to tie a shoelace, how to dive into a swimming pool.
It’s about remembering how to do something rather than knowing the rules of what to do (knowing how to behave is semantic).

Typically acquired through repetition and practice.
Its implicit

They have become automatic - can overthink them which will prevent you from doing them.
The attention causes disruption to well-learned automatic performance.
They need to be automatic so focus and attention can be on other tasks.

Question 12

What are the evaluative points?

Answer 12

Evidence from brain scans
Distinguishing procedural and declarative memories
Distinguishing episodic and semantic memories
Evidence from patients with brain damage
Priming and a forth kind of LTM

Question 13

What is meant by evidence from brain scans?

Answer 13

The distinction made between the 3 kinds of memory is supported by research using brain scanning techniques.
Such research shows that different areas of the brain are active when the different kinds of LTMs are active.

Episodic memory is associated with the hippocampus and other parts of the temporal lobe where the hippocampus is located.
It‘s also associated with activity in the frontal lobe.
The memories of different elements of a particular event may be distributed in other areas of the brain but they are all connected together by the hippocampus to form an episode.

Semantic memory also relies on the temporal lobe.

Procedural memory activation is associated with the cerebellum, which is involved in the control of fine motor skills as well as the motor cortex.

Question 14

What is meant by distinguishing procedural and declarative memories?

Answer 14

The case study of HM - noted that his ability to form new LTMs was affected by the destruction of his hippocampus (parts of his temporal lobes were also destroyed) but he retained his pre-existing LTMs.

After the surgery, HM could still form new procedural memories but not episodic or semantic memories.
For example, he was able to learn how to draw a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror, a skill called mirror-drawing (Corkin, 2002).

This is a procedural.
However, he had no memory that he had learned this (an episodic/semantic memory).

Question 15

What is meant by distinguish episodic and semantic memories?

Answer 15

The relationship between episodic and semantic memories raises the question of whether episodic memories are a gateway to forming semantic memories or whether it is sometimes possible to form semantic memories independently.

Researchers have sought an answer by studying patients with Alzheimer’s disease and found some patients who retain the ability to form new semantic memories by not episodic memories (Hodges and Patterson, 2007).
This is a single dissociation, i.e. a separation between two abilities.

This alone is not sufficient evidence that the two are distinct because it could be that episodic memory places greater general demands on mental processing and that’s why it is more affected by the brain damage.

For that reason researchers look for double dissociations, i.e. a second example of where one function is intact but the other isn’t.
One example of such a second dissociation was found by Irish (2011) in Alzheimer’s patients while have the reverse - poor semantic memories but generally intact episodic memories.

This suggests that episodic memories may be a gateway to semantic memory but it is possible for semantic memories to form separately.

Question 16

What is meant by evidence from patients with brain damage?

Answer 16

The difficulty with studies of amnesiacs, including HM, is that it is difficult to be certain of the exact parts of the brain that have been affected until a patient has died.
Most studies are conducted with living patients.

Damage to a particular area of the brain doesn’t necessarily mean that area is responsible for a particular behaviour - it may be acting as a relay station.

Malfunction of the relay station would impair performance.

Question 17

What is meant by priming and a fourth kind of LTM?

Answer 17

Priming describes how implicit memories influence the responses a person makes to a stimulus.
For example, if a person makes to a list of words including the word ‘yellow’ and is later asked to name a fruit, the probability that they will answer ‘banana’ is greater than if they are not primed.
This is a kind of implicit memory becuase the answers are automatic and unconscious.

Research has shown that priming is controlled by a brain system separate from the temporal system that supports explicit memory (semantic and episodic memories).
This has led to the suggestion that there is a fourth kind of LTM, the perceptual-representation system (PRS) memory related to priming - automatic enhanced recognition of specific stimuli.

Spiers (2001) studied memory in a total of 147 patients with amnesia.
In all cases their procedural memories and PRSs were intact, but the other two systems were not, supporting the notion of two kinds of implicit memory not affected by amnesia.