Tulving's gold memory study

Question 1

what is the aim of the tuvling gold memory study

Answer 1

To investigate whether episodic memories produced different blood flow from semantic memories.

Question 2

what is the method of the tuvling gold memory study

Answer 2

Six participants were injected with radioactive gold.
Repeated measures design, each participants did:

Four episodic trials – thought of personal experiences.

Four semantic trials – thought of facts.
Blood flow in the brain was monitored on a PET scan.

Question 3

what are the results of the tuvling gold memory study

Answer 3

Different blood flow patterns found in three out of six participants.
Semantic memories created a greater concentration of blood flow in the posterior cortex.
Episodic memories created greater flow in the frontal lobe.

Question 4

what is the conclusion of the tuvling gold memory study

Answer 4

Episodic and semantic memories are localised in different parts of the brain.
Memory has a biological basis.

Question 5

what is a strength of the tuvling gold memory study

Answer 5

A strength is that the study produced scientific evidence.
It used evidence from brain scans that is difficult to fake, unlike other psychological investigations where you can be less sure that participants are behaving genuinely.
This means that Tulving produced unbiased evidence.

Question 6

what are the weaknesses of the tuvling gold study

Answer 6

A weakness is that the sample was restricted.
Only six participants including Tulving were used and differences in blood flow for episodic and semantic memories were seen in only three participants.
This means the results were inconclusive.

A weakness is that episodic and semantic memories are often very similar.
Memories for personal events also contain facts and knowledge about the world so it is difficult to work out which type of memory is being studied.
This may explain why the evidence from Tulving’s study was inconclusive.