Types of LTM

Question 1

What is Episodic Memory?

Answer 1

• Memory for Events
• Specific details of event, context of event and emotions felt at the time
• Stored in the hippocampus

Question 2

What is Semantic Memory?

Answer 2

• Memory for facts or general knowledge
• Relate to things such as functions of an object, appropriate behaviour and abstract concepts
• Transition from episodic to semantic when memory is generalised
• Stored in the temporal lobe

Question 3

What is Procedural Memory?

Answer 3

• Concerned with motor skills and actions, tying shoelaces
• Acquired through practice and repetition and more resistant to forgetting or amnesia
• Unavailable for conscious inspection, they are automatic
• Stored in the cerebellum

Question 4

Strengths

Answer 4

• Distinction between types of LTM has come from amnesia patients, unable to store episodic or semantic memories but procedural remains unaffected
• Brain scan supports different types of LTM, different areas of brain on fMRI when recalling different info, episodic hippocampus, semantic temporal lobe and procedural cerebellum
• Clive Wearing supports different type of LTM, his hippocampus was infected, he has no episodic memory, cannot form semantic memory however his procedural memory is intact

Question 5

Weaknesses

Answer 5

Research into different types of LTM have been conducted on individual patients, highly detailed on one individual however cannot assume that everyones LTM formed in the same way so results cannot be generalised