Types of LTM Flashcards
Who proposed the 3 LTM stores?
Tulving (1985)
What are the 3 LTM stores?
Procedural,
episodic,
semantic
What is episodic memory?
Our memory of an event/ our ability to recall an event from our lives.
These memories are time-stamped.
They include several elements that are all interwoven to produce a single memory.
Have to make a conscious effort to recall these memories.
What is semantic memory?
Our knowledge of the world and facts.
This memory store contains an impressive number of concepts such as animals, Justin Bieber and love.
Not time-stamped.
It’s less personal and more about the facts that we share.
It’s constantly added to.
Have to make a conscious effort to recall them.
What is procedural memory?
Our memory for actions, skills and basically how we do things.
No conscious awareness needed to recall these memories or a great deal of effort.
These are skills that we me find hard to explain to someone else.
Evaluation - Clinical evidence - Clive wearing - LTM impaired.
Episodic memory in Clive was severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia. He had great difficulty recalling events that had happened to him in his past. However, his semantic and procedural memory was still in tact - he could remember the meaning of words and could still play the piano and sing.
This supporting evidence supports Tulving’s view that there are many different memory stores in LTM. 1 can be damaged and the other’s affected. Clear evidence that these types of memories are stored in different parts of the brain.
Evaluation - Neuroimaging evidence - PET scanner
Tulving et al. (1994) got their ppts to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner.
They found that episodic memories and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex; the left prefrontal cortex is involved in recalling semantic memories and the right prefrontal cortex is involved in the recall of episodic memories.
Supports idea that there are different LTM stores. This has been confirmed many times in later studies, increasing the validity.
