Types of LTM

Question 1

Declarative memories

Answer 1

Episodic
Semantic

Question 2

Who created the types of LTM?

Answer 2

Tulving

Question 3

Implicit (procedural) memories

Answer 3

Procedural

Question 4

Semantic memory

Answer 4

-Contains our knowledge of the world, our general knowledge we have e.g. our 2x tables,
-Contains information on concepts e.g. love, animals etc
-These memories aren’t timestamped, they aren’t personal to us.
-Rely on the temporal lobe

Question 5

Episodic memory

Answer 5

-Our memories of personal events
-These memories are timestamped + each memory will include various elements e.g. the people, location, objects, emotions etc.
-Require conscious effort to recall.
-Episodic memories are associated with the hippocampus+ parts of the temporal lobe + frontal lobe.

Question 6

Procedural memory

Answer 6

-Memories of actions + skills e.g. how to tie a shoelace or how to swim
-Usually acquired through repetition and practice.
-We can recall these memories without conscious awareness
-Thinking about them too much can affect your performance of these actions.
-Associated with the cerebellum + motor cortex.

Question 7

Case studies: Clive Wearing AO3

Answer 7

-Professional musician Clive Wearing contracted a brain infection which only left him with a memory span of 10 secs.
-The infection left him unable to recognise people he had seen or remember things he had just said.
-Despite having such a severe case of amnesia, he is still able to read music and play the piano.
-Impaired episodic memory, but functioning procedural memory.

Question 8

Case study: HM AO3

Answer 8

-Episodic memory was severely impaired due to brain damage
-Semantic memories still intact, understood the meanings of words.
-HM couldn’t recall stroking a dog, but didn’t need to have the concept of a ‘dog’ explained to him
-Supports Tulving’s view that there are different memory stores in your LTM: one store can be damaged whilst the others remain unaffected.

Question 9

AO3 LIMITATIONS

Answer 9

Conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain.
-Buckner + Peterson (1996) concluded that semantic memory is locayed in the left side of the prefrontal cortex + episodic memory is located on the right.
-HOWEVER, Tulving et al (1994) links the left prefrontal cortex to the encoding of episodic memories + right prefrontal cortex to episodic retrievall.
-Challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of LTM as there is poor agreement where each type is located