Memory - Long Term

Question 1

Tulvings theory

Answer 1

LTM can. Be broken into different stores
- procedural (non declarative )
- semantic (declarative )
-episodic (declarative )

Question 2

Non declarative mems

Answer 2

Knowing how - eg riding a bike
- implicit
- not easy to express in words

Question 3

Declarative

Answer 3

Knowing that
- explicit
- easy to put into words

Question 4

Semantic memories

Answer 4

“General knowledge”
- contains the knowledge of the world
- includes facts in a very broad sense
- non time stamped- much less personal

Question 5

Procedural

Answer 5

• memory for action or skills
• • can recall these memories without conscious awareness, or a great deal of effort
• generally hard to explain to others

Question 6

Episodic memories

Answer 6

• autobiographic record of personal experiences
• suggested they help in the distinguishing of real events and imagination
• strength can vary

Question 7

What alters the strength of episodic memoréis

Answer 7

• strength can be influenced by emotions present at the time of encoding (both traumatic and happy)
• also affected by degree of processing - highly processed mems are recalled more easily

Question 8

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 8

Forgetting old memories- usually episodic

Question 9

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 9

Cannot from new memories

Question 10

Case study of 8 yr old _ CL

Answer 10

• suggests semantic and episodic memory are separate
• brain damage after tumor removal
• deficiencies in episodic LTM, but the stm unaffected
  —> suggesting they may use different brain areas.

Question 11

Evaluation of CL

Answer 11

STRENGTH- gives the theory validity ( supporting evidence) as the separate semantic and episodic memories are supported

Question 12

Case study of Clive wearing

Answer 12

• famous musician who suffered from a rare brain infection (1985) which left him with “moment to moment” memory .
• but his procedural memories that he had previously stored were still available to him
• but if you ask him if he can play the piano he will say NO (declarative - knowing that)

Question 13

Evaluation of Clive wearing

Answer 13

Gives the theory validity- separate episodic and procedural supported.
BUT how can some of his semantic store still be slightly intact ??

Question 14

Case study of HM

Answer 14

• the “star task”
• had to draw a star between 2 concentric stars, however he had to do this in the mirror
• but over time he got better at this.
• he was unable to acquire any new declaritve knowledge, but was able to learn and retain new motor skills (non declaritve- procedural)

Question 15

Evaluation of HM case study

Answer 15

• supports this procedural memory and episodic involving separate memory stores

Question 16

Limitations o case studies

Answer 16

• brain damage / injury is traumatic - may affect internal mental processes- may not be representative
• cannot control the degree of damage sustained - cannot repeat with the exact same amount of damage- lacks reliability
• may be a relay station that is damaged - not the area that controls behaviour, or affects memory - therefore the case study may not be valid

Question 17

Neuroimaging evidence

Answer 17

Nyberg et al (2005)
- brain scans show memories are stored in different areas of the brain
- PET scans show episodic (right) and semantic (left) can be found in the pre- frontal cortex
- gives the concept validity

Question 18

Real life application

Answer 18

• can help target aspects of memory to improve lives
• enables specific treatments to be made
  Eg patients with Alzheimers
• studies the relationship between episodic and semantic mems, some patients retain the ability to form new semantic mems , no episodic.