Types of Long Term Memory Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the components of long-term memory?

A
  • Declarative Memory: episodic or semantic
  • Procedural Memory
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2
Q

What is episodic memory?

A
  • 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)
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3
Q

What is semantic memory?

A
  • 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
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4
Q

What is procedural memory?

A
  • 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
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5
Q

How does Tulving et al support the theory?

A
  • 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
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6
Q

How does Belleville et al support the theory?

A
  • 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
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7
Q

What is a weakness of the theory?

A
  • 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
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