Types Of Long Term Memory

Question 1

What are the 3 types of long term memory

Answer 1

• episodic memory
• semantic memory
• procedural memory

Question 2

What is episodic memory

Answer 2

• Ability to recall events from our personal lives.
• these memories contain what happened, when, who was there
  Eg: birthdays or a wedding
• these memories may also contain emotions that are associated with the event
• We have to make conscious effort to recall these memories as they are declarative

Question 3

What is semantic memory

Answer 3

• it is our knowledge of the world, facts which are shared by everyone rather than personal knowledge
• begin as episodic memories, over time the memory loses its association with the personal experience and becomes a semantic memory
• also declarative memories

Question 4

What is procedural memory

Answer 4

• memory concerned with skills. How to do things
• can recall these memories automatically with very little effort
• memories are acquired through practice + repetition
• don’t require conscious thought so we can perform other cognitive tasks at the same time
• non declarative memories

Question 5

Strength: supporting evidence, case studies

Answer 5

I: supporting evidence for existence of different types of long term memories from patients from case studies on individuals with amnesia
E: Clive Wearing - damage to his hippocampus
Unable to form any new LTM, only STM
Damage to LTM was specific - unable to remember episodic memories ( episodic memory was damaged, very little semantic) but he could still play the piano and procedural was unaffected
C: demonstrates that memory does not consist one of the single store within LLTM, but has 3 different stores

Question 6

Strength: supporting evidence, brain scans

Answer 6

I: supporting evidence for the existence of different types of LTM from brain scans
E: PET scans reveal there is different parts of the brain associated with different long term memories, carried out by Tulvin
- limbic system: this brain reason was accretive during procedural tasks
- hippocampus: this brain region was active when recalling episodic memories
- temporal lobe: this brain region was active when recalling semantic memories
C: increases the validity that there are different types of long term memories as there are physical and neural differences between each type

Question 7

Weakness: methodological weaknesses

Answer 7

I: Methodological weaknesses with the evidence used to evaluate the types of LTM
E: using case studies to study memory is problematic as it is only one study of a particular person. Eg: Clive wearing is an extreme case of someone who has brain damage which we are using to correlate with memory deficits
We don’t know Clive’s memory before the injury and therefore its hard to draw strong conclusions about LTM