Types of Long term memory Flashcards
Who’s theory of long-term memory?
Endel Tulving
What is procedural memories?
Knowing how to do something.
Not easy to express in words/hard to explain to others.
Also known as implicit or non-declarative.
Memory for action or skills.
We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort.
What are declarative memories?
Knowing that.
Easy to put into words.
Also known as explicit.
Types: semantic and episodic.
What are episodic memories?
Personal recollections.
Autobiographical record of personal experience.
Strength of memory is influenced by emotions present at the time of encoding.
Strength affected by the degree of processing - highly processed memories recalled more easily.
Suggested they help in the distinguishing between real events and imagination.
What are semantic memories?
General knowledge.
This contains knowledge of the world.
Includes facts, in a very broad sense.
The memory of what words mean, what an orange tastes like, what university is.
These memories are not time-stamped. It is much less personal.
Episodic LTM
Coding in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Different parts of memory for the event are located in different areas of the brain.
Connected through the hippocampus to create memory of an episode rather than separate sections.
Semantic LTM
Better sustained over time than episodic.
Linked to episodic as new knowledge tends to come from experiences.
Some suggest it is linked to the hippocampus, some say several brain areas.
Coding = frontal and temporal lobes.
AO3: research support
Suggests semantic and episodic memory are separate. 8 year old CL: Brain damage after tumour removal. Deficiencies in episodic LTM. Semantic LTM unaffected. Suggests they use different brain areas.
Clive Wearing - supports because:
suggests episodic and semantic use/are stored in separate areas of the brain, gives explanation internal validity as it means it is accurate in separating episodic from semantic.
AO3: Procedural LTM
Involved in language and speaking.
Clive Wearing - separate parts of LTM, procedural memory unaffected, episodic affected.
Can play the piano and read sheet music - procedural memories. Could not recall his wedding or his children leaving school - episodic damaged.
Procedural and episodic are separate, like the theory suggest = internal validity.
AO3: HM
Star task - tracing star from only looking in the mirror (deliberately awkward task).
His procedural memory is shown to be working (as he improved).
His episodic LTM was impaired (could not remember doing it in the first place).
Suggests they are different/separate = internal validity (also suggests episodic must rely on the hippocampus but procedural doesn’t.
AO3: Brain damage difficulties
Brain injury is traumatic which may change behaviour.
May have difficulties paying attention on tasks and therefore underperform on some memory tasks.
This would affect the validity.
Cannot control the degree of damage sustained. - difficult to replicate - reliability is low.
May be a relay station that is damaged, not the area of the brain that controls behaviour.
Tests are only done on a specific individual, cannot generalise to general/wider population as most people don’t have brain damage.
AO3: Neuroimaging evidence
Brain scans (fMRIs and PET scans) show memories are stored in different areas of the brain.
PET scans show episodic and semantic are in the pre-frontal cortex.
Left pre-frontal = semantic
Right pre-frontal = episodic
Concept has validity.
What is an fMRI?
Uses magnets.
Measures activity in the brain.
Oxygen and blood flow.
Non-invasive.
What is a PET scan?
Positron emission topography.
Injection with radioactive material.
Glucose.
AO3: why are brain scans good to use?
Pretty non-invasive (not like case-study).
Scientific - completely objective.
Reliable: consistent measure.
