types of long-term memory

Question 1

episodic memory

Answer 1

a LTM store for personal events. it includes memories of when the events occurred and of people. objects, places and behaviours involved.

1. time stamped
2. your memory of a single episode will include several elements, such as people, places, objects and behaviours. all of these memories are interwoven to produce a single memory.
3. conscious effort to recall episodic memories - you do this quickly but you are still aware that you are searching for your memory of what happened when you went to the dentist.

Question 2

time stamped

Answer 2

you remember when your memories happened as well as what happened.

Question 3

sensory memory

Answer 3

a LTM store for our knowledge of the world. this includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean. these memories usually also need to be recalled deliberately.

1. not time-stamped
2. semantic knowledge is less personal and more about facts we all share
3. according to tulving, its less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory

Question 4

procedural memory

Answer 4

a LTM store for our knowledge of how to do things. this includes our memories of learned skills.

1. we usually recall these memories with conscious or deliberate effort

for example, driving a car, our ability to this becomes automatic through practise. we change the gear without having to recall how. we indicate left or right without even realising we’ve done so.

these are the sort of skills we might find hard to explain to someone else. if you try to describe what you are doing as your drive the car, the task may well become more difficult.

Question 5

strength - types of LTM memory

Answer 5

p - clinical evidence

e - HM + clive wearing both were severely impaired due to brain damage.
HM could not recall stroking a dog for half an hour earlier but he did not need to have the concept of ‘dog’ explained to him, their procedural memories were also intact. they both knew how to walk speak, and clive wearing (a proffesional musician) knew how to read music, sing and play the piano.

l - this evidence supports tulvings view that there are different memory stores in LTM - one store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected.

Question 6

limitation - msm

Answer 6

p - conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain.

e - buckner and peterson (1996) reviewed evidence regarding the location of the semantic and episodic memory.

e - they concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right. however other research links the left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval (tulving et al 1994).

l - this challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located.