Types Of Long Term Memory Flashcards
(17 cards)
What are the 3 types of LTM?
Semantic, Episodic and Procedural
What is Declarative/Explicit Memory?
Conciously recalled (explicit)
Can be put into words (declarative)
Which 2 types of memory is Declarative/Explicit?
Semantic and Episodic
What is Non-Declarative/Implicit Memory?
Can’t be consciously recalled (implicit)
Is difficult to put into words (non-declarative)
Which type of LTM is non-declarative & implicit?
Procedural
What is Semantic LTM?
Facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the world (e.g. a bike has 2 wheels)
What is Episodic LTM?
Memory of experiences and specific events (e.g. a birthday party)
What is Procedural LTM?
Unconscious memory of skills, also known as muscle memory (e.g. knowing how to play piano)
Which of the types of LTM is time-stamped?
Episodic- will remember the time that the event took place
Other types are not time-stamped
Which type of LTM is autobiographical?
Episodic- it is personal experience, the other two types are not personal experience
Out of Episodic, Semantic and Procedural, which type of LTM is the easiest and hardest to forget?
Episodic: Easiest to forget
Procedural: Hardest to forget
What research suggests that Semantic and Episodic memory use different parts of the brain?
• Vargha-Khadem et al
• Investigated 3 young patients who had damage to their hippocampus but avoided significant damage to the nearby parahippocampus cortices
• Found all 3 had significant episodic amnesia, however could recall semantic information at an ability just below average for their age
• Suggests that semantic memory is less dependant on the hippocampus than episodic memory
How does the case study of Clive Wearing prove that semantic, episodic and procedural memory exist as seperate processes?
• Retrogade amnesia so cannot remember his (episodic) musical education
- However he remembers facts about his life (semantic) and can play the piano (procedural)
• He is unable to encode new episodic or semantic memories due to having anterogade amnesia
• Able to gain new procedural memories via repetition
• Lacks episodic completely, can recall but not encode semantic, his procedural memory is functional
What is the strength of Clive Wearing’s case study?
Allows researchers to study memory in a way that would be impossible experimentally
What are the limitations of using Clive Wearing’s case study?
• Issues generalising it to a wider population to explain how memory works
- Could be extraneous variables unique to that individual to explain the behaviour
What allowes researchers to study the brain and memory more scientifically, what does this allow?
• Use of modern cognitive neuroscience brain scanning techniques
• fMRIs identify which types of memory are associated with particular brain areas
• Allowed ideas gained by ideographic case studies to be studied via nomothetic methods, allowing generalisations to be made
What does the similarity between types of long term memory suggest?
• They might not be truly distinct
• Episodic and Semantic memories are both declarative, and episodic becomes semantic over time
