Types of long term memory Flashcards
What are the two types of long term memory?
Procedural and declarative
What are the two types of declarative memory?
Semantic and episodic
What is the episodic memory?
Our ability to recall events from OUR lives —> personal experiences and you make a conscious effort to remember so it’s a declarative memory.
What parts of the brain does episodic memories use?
The hippocampus located in the temporal lobes
What depends on the strength of episodic memory?
The emotions felt at the time e.g. traumatic events are more likely to be recalled
also how deeply the info was processed when coded.
what does it mean by semantic memories?
Knowledge about the world eg capital cities of the countries.
What type of memory is semantic memory?
Declarative (explicit) as you have to make a conscious effect to recall it would.
What parts of the brain are to do with the semantic memory?
Temporal and frontal lobes
What is meant by procedural memories?
Memory for skills eg riding a bike
What type of memory is procedural?
Procedural (implicit) so can perform skill with minimal mental effort
What parts of the brain had procedural got to do with?
Cerebellum and primary motor cortex
A03: Types of long term memory
+ Scientific evidence
+ Case study support
- Problems with evidence from patients with brain damage
- Priming and a 4th kind of LTM
A03: Scientific evidence
Scientific evidence captured from brain scans supports the view that there are different types of long-term memory. For example, when asking participants to recall different types of information different areas of the brain are shown to be active. Episodic memories are associated with the hippocampus, semantic memories with the temporal lobe and procedural memories with the cerebellum. This is a strength because it provides objective evidence that different LTMS activate different areas of the brain which supports the idea that there are different types of long-term memories.
A03: Case study support
Case studies of brain-damaged patients offer support for the different types of LTM. For example, Clive Wearing is a man who suffered a viral infection. The viral infection caused him to suffer damage to his long-term memory. He struggled to remember semantic and episodic memories however, he was still able to remember procedural memories (e.g. how to play the piano). This is a strength because it shows that it’s possible to maintain just one type of LTM, therefore supporting the idea that there are in fact different types of LTM and that they are stored separately in the brain.
A03:Problems with evidence from patients with brain damage
It’s difficult to reach a firm conclusion by studying brain-damaged patients. The difficulty with studies of amnesiacs, including HM, is that it’s difficult to be certain of the exact parts of the brain that have been affected until a patient has died. Most studies were conducted with living patients. Damage to a particular area of the brain does not necessarily mean that area is responsible for a particular behaviour – it may be acting as a relay station. A malfunction of the relay station would impair performance. This means we cannot establish a causal relationship between a particular brain region and the type of long-term memory.
