Types of Long-Term Memory

Question 1

Outline the different types of LTM

Answer 1

• Explicit memory and implicit memory. There’s a distinction between knowing that and how.
• Episodic and semantic are examples of knowing that. Procedural memories are knowing how.

Question 2

Describe episodic memory

Answer 2

• Concerned with personal experiences, and recollection of it, time, place and who was there.
• You may also recall the context around the event, like what happened before or after, or why you were there, and emotions you felt at the time.
• So, episodic memories have 3 elements: specific details of the event, context, and the emotion

Question 3

Describe semantic memory

Answer 3

• Knowledge about the world that is shared by everyone rather than the personal kind
• May relate to functions of objects, social customs, but also abstract concepts (languages).

Question 4

How are semantic memories formed?

Answer 4

• Usually begin as episodic as we acquire knowledge based on personal experiences.
• There is gradual transition where the memory slowly loses its association to particular events, so info can be generalised as a semantic memory.

Question 5

Describe procedural memory

Answer 5

• Concerned with skills and remembering how to do something rather than the rules of what to do (knowing how to behave towards others, compared to behaving nicely towards others)
• Acquired through repetition and practice

Question 6

What are the effects of procedural memory being automatic?

Answer 6

• We are less aware of them. Often, if you think about procedural memories too much, it prevents you from acting them out. The attention to the step-by-step procedure disrupts the automatic performance.
• They’re automatic so we can focus our attention on other tasks while performing these everyday skills

Question 7

Give evaluation for types of LTM (case study support)

Answer 7

• Case study support.
• CW he lost his memory due to a brain infection and suffered effects to their LTM. His procedural memory was completely unaffected, CW could still play the piano. Semantic memory was somewhat affected, CW couldn’t remember his daughter’s name but could remember he was married and his wife. The episodic memory was most impaired as new LTMs of events couldn’t be formed and lost memory of events around the start of memory loss. However, the STM was completely intact.
• Suggests there is atleast 3 distinct types of LTM.

Question 8

Give evaluation for types of LTM (brain scans)

Answer 8

• There has been distinctions made between the 3 kinds of LTM is supported by brain scan research.
• Episodic memory is associated with the hippocampus and other parts of the temporal lobe, and frontal lobe. Semantic memory also relies on the temporal lobe. Procedural memory activation is associated with the cerebellum, basal ganglia and limbic system.
• Therefore, brain scans indicate that 3 types of memory are found in different parts of the brain.

Question 9

Give evaluation for types of LTM (Alzheimer’s)

Answer 9

• Support from studies of patients with Alzheimer’s.
• Hodges and Patterson (2007) examined the relationship between episodic and semantic memories and found some Alzheimer’s patients retain the ability to form new semantic memories but not episodic. Irish et al found the reverse in Alzheimer’s patients, they had poor semantic memories but generally intact episodic memories
• Suggests epidodic and semantic are seperate and not as interlinked