Explanation of Long Term Memory

Question 1

Episodic Memory

Answer 1

A LTM system for personal events.
Includes memory of when the events occurred (time stamped) and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories take conscious effort to be retrieved.

Question 2

Semantic Memory

Answer 2

A LTM memory system for knowledge of the world. Includes facts and our knowledge of what words/concepts mean. Needs to be recalled deliberately.

Question 3

Examples of Episodic Memory

Answer 3

Recent visit to the dentist, breakfast that morning etc.

Question 4

Examples of Semantic Memory

Answer 4

Applying to university, taste of an orange, meaning of words etc.

Question 5

Key Features of Episodic Memory

Answer 5

• Time stamped.
• Memory of a single episode includes several elements interwoven to produce a single memory.
• Episodic memories have a subjective quality that no others have.
• Awareness of a memory and that it is not a dream is called Autonoetic Consciousness.

Question 6

Key features of Semantic Memory

Answer 6

• Necessary for language.
• Stores organised knowledge of language and contains a range of concepts.
• Allows us to mentally represent things that are not present.
• Tulving says SM is less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than EM.
• Not time stamped, less personal, more about facts we all share.

Question 7

Clinical evidence: HM

Answer 7

HM supports distinction between EM and SM.

• HM had severely impaired EM from brain damage.
• Difficulty recalling events from his past, but SM relatively unaffected.
• Can’t recall stroking a dog earlier or having a dog but knows the concept of a dog.
• Supports Tulving that there are different stores in LTM.

Question 8

Competing Argument: Clinical Evidence

Answer 8

• Clinical studies lack control of variables.
• Studies involve people who have experienced brain damage, which is normally unexpected.
• Means the researcher has no knowledge of patients memory before damage.
• So it is difficult to judge how worse it is now.
• Lack of control reduces validity and limits what CS can tell us about types of LTM.

Question 9

Relationship between types of LTM is more complex than believed

Answer 9

Tulving (2002) viewed EM as a specialised subcategory of SM.

When researching amnesia he showed that its possible to have a working SM and a damaged EM. Not possible other way around.

Question 10

Application

Answer 10

Belleville et al. 2006 worked with older people with memory impairment who took a programme to improve EM.

Compared to a control group they performed better on an EM test after training.

In favour of there being multiple stores and used to help people with specific memory problems to lead normal lives.