CiCC - Memory - Long Term Memory

Types of Long Term Memory

• Episodic (when?)

• Semantic (what?)

• Procedural (how?)

  these “systems” interact with each other

Episodic Memory

Conscious memory of “episodes”, which are prone to forgetting.

Brain region associated with Episodic Memory

Medial Temporal Lobe

Semantic Memory

Conscious Memory of factual knowledge about the world, organized in a network of connected concepts.

Brain region associated with Semantic Memory

Lateral Temporal Cortex

Procedural Memory

Unconscious memory of skills, in which information is automatically retrieved.

Brain region associated with Procedural memory.

Basal Ganglia

What drives memory encoding?

Reinforcement - Our brains our predictors that learn when we are wrong.

Evidence on forgetting in episodic memory

Ebbinghaus (1913) - found decay of forgetting nonsense syllables increased overtime.

Evidence of the effect of context on episodic memory

Godden and Baddeley (1975) - found that recall is better when recall occurred in the same context information was encoded in (divers underwater)

Evidence for interaction of memory systems

Loftus and Palmer (1974) - found that the use of violent words influenced participants' perception of car crash speed. (semantic processes influence episodic memory)

Complementary Learning Systems (CLS)

Theory suggesting that semantic memory is updated gradually. (cannot be updated too quickly). Explicit information is encoded first by the episodic system. Then System Consolidation transforms memories from episodic → semantic.

Evidence for CLS and System Consolidation

Walter et al (2003) - found performance on a sequence learning task increased AFTER sleeping.

Contrasting Evidence for Complementary Learning Systems

Tse et al (2007) - schema consistent information can bypass system consolidation. Model has since been updated to account for rapid semantic updating.

Test measuring Semantic Knowledge

The Pyramids and Palm Trees Test