Explanations of LTM Flashcards
What is an episodic memory?
A LTM system for personal events. It includes memory of when the events occured (time stamped) and of people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories from this store have to be retrieved consciously and with effort.
What is a semantic memory?
A LTM system for our knowledge of the world. This includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean. These memories usually need to be recalled deliberately.
What are some key features of episodic memory?
- They are time stamped (you remember when they happened)
- Your memory of a single episode includes several elements all of them interwoven to produce a single memory
- Allows us to time travel- we can think back to past events and relive them because episodic memory has a subjective quality
What are some key features of semantic memory?
- Is necessary for us to use languagee
- It allows us to mentally present things that are not present
- According to Tulving, semantic memory is less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic
- Not timestamped
- Less personal
How does HM support this explanation of LTM?
HM’s episodic memory was severely impaired as a result of brain damage. He had difficulty recalling events from the past, but his semantic memory was relatively unaffected (he understood the meanings of words). So HM could not recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier and could not remember having owned a dog in the past. But he did not need to have the concept of a dog explained to him.
How does Tulving explain that perhaps episodic memory and semantic memories aren’t entirely different?
Tulving came to view epidodic memory as a “specialised subcategory” of semantic memory.
It is possible to have a fully functioning semantic memory with a damaged epidodic memory.
It is not possible to have a fully functioning episodic memory alongside a damaged semantic memory.
What is procedural memory?
This is our memory for actions or skills or basically how we do things.
E.g. driving a car becomes natural but may be hard to explain how to do it to someone else
