types of long term memory MEM

Question 1

episodic memory

Answer 1

Long term store for personal events - when they occurred, people, objects, places. Need effort for retrieval

Question 2

semantic memory

Answer 2

For knowledge of the world, facts of words and concepts

Question 3

procedural memory

Answer 3

Knowledge of how to do things - learned skills unconscious recall

Question 4

What did Tulving relise about the MSM?

Answer 4

It was too simplistic and inflexible

Question 5

which 3 LTM stores did Tulving propose?

Answer 5

• episodic memory
• semantic memory
• procedural memory

Question 6

Strength for types of LTM

Clinical evidence

Answer 6

evidence from the famous case studies of HM (Henry Molaison) and Clive Wearing

• Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage
• semantic memories were unaffected

This evidence supports Tulving’s view that there are difference memory stores in LTM - one can be damaged but other stores are unaffected

Question 7

Limitation of types of LTM

counterpoint to clinical evidence

Answer 7

• Studying people with brain injuries can help researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally BUT clinical studies are not perfect
• there is a lack of control of variables
• The brain injuries experienced= usually unexpected
• Researcher has no knowledge of the individuals memory before the damage
• Without this it is difficult to judge how much worse it is afterwards
• This lack of control limits was clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM
  *

Question 8

real world application

strenght

Answer 8

• help people with memory problems
• E.g. as people age, the experience memory loss
• But research shows that this is episodic memory - becomes harder to recall memories of personal events / experiences that happened in the past but recent episodic memories stay intact
• Belleville et al 2006 devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people
• Trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group
  Shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed

Question 9

conflicting neauroimaging evidence

limitation

Answer 9

there are conflicting research findings liking types of LTM to area of the brain
* E.g. Buckner and Peterson 1996 reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory
* They concludes semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right
* But other research links the prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval (Tulving et al 1994)
This challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located