Long Term Memory - Tulving

Question 1

Long Term Memories

Answer 1

The LTM is a lot more complex which is why we may be better at remembering some things like places, but not faces.

Question 1

What are the 3 types of Long Term Memories?

Answer 1

1) Episodic
2) Semantic
3) Procedural

Question 2

LTM can be further divided into:

Answer 2

1) Declarative memories - explicit memories that can be inspected and recalled consciously
2) Procedural memories - implicit memories that we are typically unable to recall

Declarative refers to episodic and semantic memories

Question 3

Describe Episodic Memories

Answer 3

• Ability to remember events or episodes in our life
• Why are they complex?
  1) They are time-stamped
  2) They involve a conscious effort to recover
  3) 1 single event includes several elements, eg, place, time, season, etc, all interwoven together
• Explicit memories
• Coordinated in the hippocampus
• Episodic memories can be split further into:
  1) Autobiographical episodic memory - memories of specific events of one’s life
  2) Flashbulb memory - detailed autobiographical episodic memories that are permanently stored in the LTM when they are first learnt as they are of emotional/historical significance in that person’s life
  3) Experimental episodic memory - where learning a fact has been associated with a memory of the specific life event when it was learnt

Question 4

Describe Semantic Memories

Answer 4

• Our knowledge of the world
• Characteristics of the SM:
  1) Not time stamped
  2) Complex as it includes more than just factual information that is constantly added to
• Coordinated in the temporal lobe

Question 5

Describe Procedural Memories

Answer 5

• Our memory of motor actions, skills and/or muscle memory
• Characteristics of PM:
  1) Don’t require conscious effort
  2) Hard to describe or explain to someone else
• Coordinated in cerebellum and motor cortex

Question 6

Strength

Answer 6

Clinical evidence from the cases of Clive Wearing and HM. Both suffered from amnesia. Their episodic memory was severely impaired as they could not recall events from their past. Semantic memory was relatively intact - HM could not remember stroking a dog half an hour earlier but could remember having a dog in the past (he knew what a dog was). Procedural memory was intact as they could tie their shoelaces. Clive could even continue to play the piano.

Question 7

Strength

Answer 7

Real world application - we are able to understand individuals with memory loss. Ageing people lose a certain type of episodic memory (they can recall long ago events, but not recent ones). Distinguishing between the types of LTM allows for specific treatments to be developed.

Question 8

Weakness

Answer 8

Studying brain injuries lacks control of variables which prevents the researcher being able to study memory properly.

Question 9

Weakness

Answer 9

Conflicting neuroimaging evidence - Buckner and Petersen found that semantic memory is found on the left of the prefrontal cortex, whereas the episodic is on the right. Other studies have found the memory stores the other way around. This does not help us as there is contrasting evidence.