Types of long-term memory Flashcards
Episodic Memory
Types of long-term memory
Refers to our ability to recall events from our lives
These memories are complex
They are time-stamped - you remember what and when
Episodic mems also store info about how events relate to each other in time
Memory of a single episode will include several elements (i.e. people, places, etc)
Have to make conscious effort to recall episodic mems
Semantic memory
Types of long-term memory
Contains shared knowledge of the world (i.e. what an orange tastes like)
Also contains knowledge of concepts (i.e. ‘animals’ or ‘love’)
Not time-stamped
Less personal and more about facts we all share
Less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory
Procedural memory
Types of long-term memory
Memory for actions or skills
Recall w/o conscious awareness or effort (eventually)
E.g. driving a car
Sort of skills that are different to explain to someone else
If you try to describe what you are doing as you drive the car, the task my become more difficult
Evaluation: Clinical evidence
Types of long-term memory
Strength: Case studies of HM & Clive Wearing
Episodic mem in both men was impaired due to brain damage
Semantic mems were relatively unaffected
Still understood meaning of words
E.g. HM could not recall stroking a dog half an hour ago but did not need the concept of a dog explained to him
Procedural mems also intact - both knew how to walk & speak, Clive could play the piano still
Therefore, supports Tulving’s view that there are diff mem stores in LTM
Evaluation: Clinical evidence (Counterpoint)
Types of long-term memory
Studying people w/ brain injuries can help researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally
But clinical studied are not perfect
Major limit is they lack control of variables
Brain injuries experienced by ppts were usually unexpected
Researcher had no way of controlling what happened to ppt before or during the injury
Researcher has no knowledge of the individual’s prior memory
W/o this, it’s difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards
Therefore, lack of control limits what clinical evidence can tell us about diff types of LTM
Evaluation: Concflicting neuroimaging evidence
Types of long-term memory
Limit: conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain
Buckner & Petersen reviewed evidence regarding location of semantic & episodic memory
Concluded that semantic memory is located in left side of prefrontal cortex & episodic memory on the right
However, other research links left prefrontal cortex w/ encoding of episodic memory & right prefrontal cortex w/ episodic retrieval (Tulving)
Therefore, this challenges neurophysological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type may be located
Evaluation: Real-world application
Types of long-term memory
Strength: understanding types of LTM allows psychologists to help people w/ mem problems
E.g. as people age, they experience mem loss
Research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory - it becomes harder to recall memories of personal experience
Belleville et al devised intervention to improve episodic memories in older people
Trained ppts performed better on test of episodic memory after training than a CG
Therefore, distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed
