Tulving’s Types Of Long Term Memory

Question 1

What is Episodic Memory?

Answer 1

• LTM store for personal events.
• Includes memories of when events occurred and of people, objects, places and behaviours involved.
• Time stamped.
• Conscious effort required to recall memories.
• Declarative - can be explained verbally.

Question 2

What is Semantic Memory?

Answer 2

• LTM store for our knowledge of the world.
• Includes and facts and knowledge of what words and concepts mean.
• Not time stamped.
• Conscious effort to recall memories.
• Declarative - can be explained verbally.

Question 3

What is Procedural Memory?

Answer 3

• LTM store for our knowledge of how to do things.
• Includes memories of learned skills.
• Not time stamped.
• No conscious effort required during retrieval.
• Non Declarative - can not be explained easily verbally.

Question 4

Evaluation of types of LTM - Clinical Evidence

Answer 4

• Evidence from case studies to support.
• Case study of Clive Wearing demonstrates that episodic memory was severely impacted due to amnesia. Had difficulty recalling events that had happened to him in the past but semantic memories were unaffected. Suggests that Tulving’s View of different memory stores in LTM is accurate if one store can be damaged and others remain unaffected.
• Strength - evidence that there must be different types of long term memory.

Question 5

Evaluation of types of LTM - Neuroimaging Evidence

Answer 5

• Evidence from brain scan studies support different types of LTM.
• Tulving et al asked participants to perform various memory tasks during brain scanning using a PET scanner. Found that the left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories, right prefrontal cortex involved in recall of episodic memories. Different areas of the brain are involved in different types of LTM.
• Strength - provides clear evidence for different types of LTM as well as them being stored in different parts of the brain.

Question 6

Evaluation of types of LTM - real life applications

Answer 6

• Research is conducted on individual patients.
• Clive Wearing and HM are unique individuals in that they have a unique condition. Innappropriate to assume that everyone’s LTM is formed in the same way as two individuals who suffered from brain damage.
• Weakness - findings can not be generalised.

Question 7

Evaluation of types of LTM - two long term stores

Answer 7

• May only be actually two long term memory stores.
• Cohen and Squire disagreed with Tulving’s division of LTM into 3 different types. Accept Procedural memory but argue that episodic and semantic are stored together. Suggests that semantic memory comes from episodic memory in that we learn new concepts from our experiences.
• Weakness - decreases validity of Tulving’s theory of Long Term Memory stores.