Types of Long Term Memory

Procedural memory

• Is part of the long term memory that is responsible for memory of motor skills ‘muscle memory’

• It does not involve conscious thought and is non-declarative

• Procedural memories are particularly strong memories, they are nearly immune to forgetting and concern themselves with knowing how, implicit memory (requires no conscious awareness)

Semantic memory

• Is a part of long term memory responsible for storing information about the world, it is factual information. Can be thought of as our dictionary of knowledge

• Memory of learning goes gradually

• This includes knowledge about the meaning of words, as well as general knowledge

• Tulving et al (1994) used a PET scanner to scan participants brains whilst they completed various memory tasks, recalled form the left prefrontal cortex

Episodic memory

• Is a part of the long term memory responsible for storing information about events that we have experienced in our lives and revolves around events in time and place, these are time stamped events

• Does not involve conscious thought and is declarative

• Tulving et al (1994) Used a PET scanner to scan participants brains whilst they completed various memory tasks, episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex, involves conscious thought

Procedural and semantic similarities and differences

• Procedural memories take longer then semantic, does not involve the hippocampus which is involved in semantic + episodic

• Procedural memories can be remembered by amnesia patients but not semantic

Procedural and episodic similarities and differences

• Procedural are memories of motor skills, episodic are life events

• Procedural are unavailable for conscious inspection whilst episodic can be expressed verbally

Episodic and Semantic similarities and differences

• Both in the hippocampus, amnesia patients have more difficulty keeping episodic and semantic

• Episodic are time stamped whilst semantic aren’t time stamped, also more robust then episodic