types of long term memory

Question 1

who proposed the idea that the multi-store model proposed the LTM as too simplistic and inflexible (and when)

Answer 1

Tulving (1985)

Question 2

what are the 3 types of LTM

Answer 2

• episodic
• semantic
• procedural

Question 3

define episodic memory

Answer 3

• ability to recall events
• complex memories
• time-stamped = remember when they happened
• memory of single episode includes several elements
• conscious effort to recall episodic memories

Question 4

define semantic memory

Answer 4

• shared knowledge of the world
• contains knowledge of impressive number of concepts eg. love, animals
• not time-stamped
• less personal & more about shared facts
• constantly being added to
• Tulving said it’s less prone to distortion/forgetting than episodic

Question 5

define procedural memory

Answer 5

• actions & skills
• recall without conscious awareness/much effort
• automatic through practice
• may find hard to explain to others

Question 6

evaluation of types of LTM

Answer 6

+) clinical evidence
P: famous case studies of HM & clive wearing
E: episodic memory in both was impaired due to brain damage but semantic memories were mostly unaffected. still understood meaning of words - eg. HM couldn’t recall stroking a dog 30 mins ago but knew what a dog was. procedural memories also intact as could walk, speak & clive wearing could play music/sing eg. piano
T: supports tulving’s view that there are different memory stores in LTM
-) COUNTERPOINT
P: studying people with brain injuries can help researchers understand how memory works but clinical studies are not perfect.
E: main limitation is they lack control variables. the brain injuries of participants mostly unexpected & researcher has no control over what happens before/during injury & no knowledge of individuals memory prior to accident so cannot accurately judge level of effect.
T: lack of control limits what clinical studies can highlight about different types of LTM

-) conflicting neuroimaging evidence
P: conflicting research findings that link types of LTM to areas of the brain
E: eg. randy buckner & steve petersen (1996) reviewed evidence on location of semantic & episodic memory. finalised that semantic memories located on left side of prefrontal cortex & episodic memories on the right. however, other research links left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories & right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval (tulving et al. 1994)
T: challenges neurophysical evidence supporting types of memory as there’s poort agreement on where they may be located

+) real world application
P: allows psychologists to support people with memory issues
E: eg. when people age, memory loss occurs but research has shown this is specific to episodic memory (harder to recall memories of personal events & experiences that happened relatively recent but past episodic memories remain intact) —> belleville et al. (2006) designed intervention to improve episodic memories of elderly people - performed better after
T: distinguishing different types of LTM enables treatments to be developed

Question 7

(extra) same or different?

Answer 7

(+) tulving (2002) has created the view that episodic memory is a specialised subcategory of semantic memory & his research showed some people with amnesia have functioning semantic memory alongside damaged episodic
(-) hodges & patterson (2007) found some with alzeihmers disease could form new episodic memories not semantic