Types of Long - Term Memory Flashcards
Briefly explain the term ‘Episodic memory’
Personal memories of events, such as what you did yesterday or a teacher you liked. This kind of memory includes contextual details plus emotional tone
Briefly explain the term ‘Semantic memory’
Shared memories for facts and knowledge. These memories may be concrete, such as knowing that ice is made of water, or abstract, such as mathematical knowledge.
Briefly explain the term ‘Procedural memory’
Memory for how to do things, for example riding a bicycle or learning how to read. Such memories are automatic as the result of repeated practice.
What is LTM divided into?
Explicit (or declarative) memory and Implicit ( or procedural) memory.
- Knowing that = semantic and episodic
- Knowing how = procedural memory
Outline Episodic memory
- knowing that
- event or groups of events like first day of school, a family holiday.
- can recall time or place of event and who was there
- recall context surrounding the event
- recall emotions felt at the time
(specific details of event, context, and emotion)
Outline Semantic memory
- knowing that
- semantic memories e.g 2+2=4 and who goes to school etc = knowledge about the world rather than personal kind of memories.
- may relate to things - appropriate social behaviour, functions of objects and concepts like math and language.
- begins as episodic then slowly loses association to particular events, so that the information can be generalised as a semantic memory.
Outline Procedural memory
- knowing how = remembering how to do something
- concerned with skills
- acquired through repetition, as unlike semantic and episodic is implicit
- the memories have become automatic - important as we can focus our attention on other tasks while performing these everyday skills.
AO3
Is there evidence for the 3 types of LTM?
P: Brain scans - show distinction between the 3 kind sof LTM
E: Episodic memory = hippocampus & temporal lobe & frontal lobe.
Semantic memory = temporal lobe
Procedural memory = associated with cerebellum - involved in the control of fine motor skills as well as the motor cortex & basal ganglia and limbic system
E: Brain scans - show different types of LTM in different parts of the brain and so are separate.
AO3
What research suggests that there is a difference between procedural (implicit) and explicit (declarative -semantic and episodic) memory?
P: Evidence from case studies shows different types of LTM
E: HM - couldn’t form any new LTM as his hippocampus was destroyed, be he still remembered previous LTM.
After the surgery, HM could still form new procedural memories but not episodic and semantic memories. For example, he was able to learn how to draw a figure by looking at its reflection in the mirror. This is a procedural memory. However, he had no memory that he had learned this (an episodic/semantic memory).
E: This supports the distinction between procedural and declarative memories, and hence the existence of multiple types of LTM
AO3
Are studies from patients with brain damage valid?
P: Difficult to reach a conclusion by studying brain-damaged patients.
E: Difficulty of studies like HM = it is hard to be certain of the exact parts of the brain that have been affected until a patient has died. Most studies are conducted on living patients. Damage to a particular area of the brain doesn’t mean that area is responsible for a particular behaviour.
E: This means we cannot establish a causal relationship between a particular brain region and type of LTM
AO3
Can episodic and semantic memories be distinguished?
P: Support comes from patients with Alzheimer’s
E: Found some patients who retain the ability to form new semantic memories but not episodic memories.
This is a single dissociation, i.e a separation between two abilities.
A second dissocation = research = Alzheimer’s patients who have the reverse - poor semantic memories but generally good episodic memories.
E: This double dissociation = episodic and semantic = different and that episodic memories may be a gateway to semantic memory.
AO3
Is there another kind of LTM that’s not semantic, procedural, or episodic?
P: Priming - there may be a fourth type of LTM
E: For example, priming describes how implicit memories influence the responses a person makes to a stimulus. If a person is given a list of words and it includes yellow and then was later asked to name a fruit they would most likely say banana than if not primed. This is a kind of implicit memory as the answers are automatic and unconscious. Research - priming - temporal lobe = semantic and episodic = so there is a fourth type of LTM, the perpetual representation system (PRS) memory related to priming, supported by Spurs et al.
E: Suggests other types of LTM may exist and the original theory is too simplistic- reductionist.
