Lesson 7: Types of Long-Term Memory

Question 1

Episodic memory

Answer 1

• memory from events e.g. birthdays
• specific details, context and emotions
• stored in the hippocampus

Question 2

Semantic memory

Answer 2

• facts and general knowledge
• also relate to things such as the functions of objects, how to behave in a certain situation, as well as abstract concepts
• begin as episodic memories but there is a gradual transition to a semantic memory when the memory slowly loses its association to particular events and is generalised however sometimes people can recall when and where they learned a particular fact
• stored in the temporal lobe

Question 3

Procedural memory

Answer 3

• sometimes called muscle memory
• concerned with motor skills and actions e.g. driving
• typically acquired through practise and repetition and seem to be more resistant to forgetting
• we are less aware of procedural memories as they have become automatic
• stored in the cerebellum

Question 4

Positives of the long term memory

Answer 4

(+) evidence for distinction between episodic/semantic and procedural memory has come from research on patients with amnesia who are typically unable to store new episodic or semantic memories but their procedural memory appears to be unaffected

(+) scientific evidence captured from brain scans supports view that there are different types of LTM
- when pps asked to recall different types of information, different areas of brain are shown to be active on an fMRI
- episodic-> hippocampus, semantic->temporal lobe, procedural->cerebellum

(+) case studies of brain damaged patients offer support for different types of LTM
- Clive Wearing suffered from a viral infection which damaged hippocampus
- had no episodic memory and couldn’t form to new semantic memories but his procedural memory was still intact e.g. (he could still play piano)

Question 5

Negative of the long term memory

Answer 5

(-) research into LTM have been case studies conducted on individual patients but are isolated cases of one individual- it would be inappropriate to assume that everyone’s LTM is formed in the same way- findings cannot be generalised to the wider population