Episodic and Semantic Memory (Tulving)

Question 1

What is episodic memory?

Answer 1

Memory for events (experience)

Question 2

What is semantic memory?

Answer 2

Factual information: relationships of how things work

Question 3

How is episodic memory encoded/referenced?

Answer 3

Time and spatially - memories ar elinked together based on when they happened and are stored chronoglogically

Question 4

How can an episodic memory be triggered?

Answer 4

By contextual cues

Question 5

Define contextual cue

Answer 5

Things that remind the brain of when/where the memory was encoded

Question 6

Give supporting evidence of episodic and semantic memory

Answer 6

• Clive Wearing (has no episodic memory of his wife but can remember he loves her-semantic memory)
• Dementia patients lose episodic memory first then semantic memory

Question 7

Give conflicting evidence of episodic and semantic memory

Answer 7

• Damage to the temporal cortex causes problems with both types of memory
• Squire and Zola- examined children with amnesia (couldn’t make semantic memories) and adults with amnesia (had semantic memories): had equal impairment in both

Question 8

What other theories are linked to episodic and semantic memory

Answer 8

• MSM - LTM is separate from STM

- Reconstructive Memory - Schemas and categories

Question 9

Is episodic and semantic memory useful?

Answer 9

• Cues help those with dementia

- Doesn’t explain how the STM works

Question 10

Is episodic and semantic memory testable?

Answer 10

• Can’t directly study the episodic memory

- Easier to study the semantic memory (e.g. Baddeley and scuba divers)