Types of Long Term Memory

Question 1

What are the components of long-term memory?

Answer 1

• Declarative Memory: episodic or semantic
• Procedural Memory

Question 2

What is episodic memory?

Answer 2

• Memories regarding personal experiences from our lives
• Require conscious explicit effort to recall - need to search your memory to recall info from event
• Each single episode can include people, places, objects bound into one memory episode
• Strength of memory depends on the level of emotional arousal at the time it is coded
  e.g. traumatic events are often recalled more accurately due to high emotional content
• Episodic memories are timestamped (remember when it occurred)

Question 3

What is semantic memory?

Answer 3

• facts about the world and are always being added to e.g. knowing the capital of France is Paris
• require conscious explicit effort to recall
• represent you knowledge base for everything you know and therefore are less personable and NOT time stamped

Question 4

What is procedural memory?

Answer 4

• memories for action motor skills
• can be recalled without conscious effort (implicit)
• depends on a developed skill which is automatically accessed (without need for recall) from procedural memory when needed e.g walking
• many are formed early in life as they involve learning important motor skills e.g. walking
• are often difficult to articulate

Question 5

How does Tulving et al support the theory?

Answer 5

• one strength of the theory is that there’s neuro-imaging evidence to support that the LTM has different and distinct stores
• e.g. Tulving et al used PET brain scans to monitor brain activity when PPs performed various memory tasks including recalling semantic and episodic memories
• They found that when episodic memories were recalled the prefrontal cortex more active and when semantic memories were recalled the posterior region was more active
• this is a strength because it suggests that different types of LTM are separate stores with physical and objective evidence
• Also further supporting research confirms many times that these brain areas are involved in different types of LTM
• This validates the findings of the theory

Question 6

How does Belleville et al support the theory?

Answer 6

• one strength of the theory is that it has real life applications
• episodic memory is the type most often affected by mild cognitive impairments thus highlight the benefit of being able to distinguish between types of LTM
• Belleville et al showed that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment as trained PPs performed better on an episodic memory test than a control group
• this is a strength because by knowing there are different stores of LTM (as provided by the theory) we can specifically treat these separate stores
• also as the therapy has been proven effective we can assume the theory it’s based on is also valid
• this increases the theory in both utility and validity

Question 7

What is a weakness of the theory?

Answer 7

• one weakness of the theory is that semantic and episodic memories aren’t independent
• some researchers suggest that episodic memories are the gateway to forming semantic memories
• e.g. the semantic memory that clouds produce rain may come from the episodic memory of learning about clouds in school
• this is a weakness because the theory presents episodic and semantic memories as completely separate stores
• however semantic memories may be a gradual transformation of episodic memories
• this shows the relationship between 2 types of LTM isn’t accounted for by the theory so it therefore doesn’t present a complete picture
• this decreases the validity of the theory