Tulving - episodic and semantic - LTM

Question 1

What did Tulving believe the LTM could be divided into?

Answer 1

Semantic and episodic

Question 2

What is the semantic memory?

Answer 2

• stores words, facts, rules, meanings and concepts
• semantic memories are associated with other facts that form together to build concepts about things

Question 3

What is the episodic memory?

Answer 3

Stores information about experiences and events that occur in our life

Question 4

How are they different in time referencing?

Answer 4

Semantic - detached from time - facts can be recalled without remembering the time it was learned

Episodic - memories about events are linked to the time they occurred

Question 5

How are they different in input?

Answer 5

Semantic - input is fragmented - pieces of factual info together that is learned at different times

Episodic - input is constant - continuously experiencing events

Question 6

How are they different in retrieving and recalling?

Answer 6

Semantic - dependent on logical thought

Episodic - dependent on context - cue dependent memory - whilst encoding a memory, you also encode other “cues” which can help with recall

Question 7

How are they different in independence?

Answer 7

Semantic - can operate independently without needing context from episodic memory

Episodic - needs semantic memory to operate - need previous knowledge to understand events

Question 8

Strength

Answer 8

• Case Study - HM - as a result of brain damage, his episodic memory was impaired where he couldn’t remember events such as the death of his father, but could still remember the meaning of words, meaning his semantic memory was in tact

Question 9

Weakness

Answer 9

• Generalisability - HM is one person - may not reflect other people as HM suffered from quite severe damage which is rare to experience - if there was less damage, which there usually would be, the memory stores may not be as impacted