The Long Term Memory

LTM

a "Permanent" store that holds unlimited amounts of information

According Tulving (1967), there are 3 different types of LTM

1. Episodic

2. Procedural

3. Semantic

1. Episodic Memory

= Lifetime events that can be reported

o Type of "declarative" memory, declaring in brain that we are trying to think about it

o Can be explicitly inspected and recalled consciously

e.g., the time, the place, the people, the name/purpose of event

Autobiographical

Experimental

Flashbulb

Experimental Episodic Memory

= where learning a fact (a semantic memory) has been associated with memory of the specific life episode when it was learned

e.g., you learn what moussaka is on a holiday to Greece and now associate your knowledge of moussaka to your holiday in Greece

Autobiographical Episodic Memory

= memories of specific episodes of one's life

e.g., party, first kiss, day you were dumped, passed your driver's test

Flashbulb Memory

= detailed autobiographical episodic memories that are stored permanently in LTM when they are first learned, often because they were of emotional or historical importance in that person's life

e.g., a birth, a death, a traumatic accident, a broken bone, a time you witnessed a crime

2. Procedural Memory

= unconscious to recall and describes our implicit knowledge of tasks

- It doesn't need our "conscious inspection", we don't have to think about

- Its automatic

- If you were asked how to do it, you would probably struggle to think about how because you just do it

- It has become mechanical because it is so rehearsed

- Often motor skill based, an action or a motor movement

- Sometimes referred to as "muscle memory"

e.g. riding a bike, reading, brushing a teeth

3. Semantic Memory

= type of declarative memory, needs to be explicitly or consciously recalled

- Stores information about the world in our LTM

- Knowledge of facts that have meaning

- Knowledge of meaning of words

- Also called general knowledge

e.g., Capital cities, leaves fall off of trees in winter

STRENGTHS of LTM - Evidence from Brain Scans

P

= Tulving's theory that there are different types of long-term memory is supported by evidence provided by brain scan

EV

= For example, when participants were asked to recall different types of information, different areas of the brain were shown to be active for different recollection of information

EX

= Research has found that episodic memories are associated with the hippocampus, procedural memories are associated with the cerebellum at the back of the brain, and semantic memories are associated with the temporal lobe

C

= Despite this, the research of Squire and Zola (1998) suggest that the semantic and episodic memory may rely on each other. When studying children with amnesia and adults with amnesia, both their semantic and episodic memories seemed to be equally impaired, but the children were unable to acquire semantic memoires due to their age whereas the adults developed both semantic and episodic memoires. This supports the idea that these two memory stores are linked and are not entirely separate

LB

= However, brain scans remain a strength as it provides evidence that different areas of the brain are activated by different LTMS, which supports Tulving's research that there are different types of long-term memories.

WEAKNESS of LTM - Too Idiographic

P

Case studies can be criticised as being too idiographic

EV

= For example, the case study of Clive Wearing provides a lot of detail but is a fundamentally isolated case of one individuals long-term memory damage

EX

= This is a weakness as we are unable to generalise the findings from this case study because it would be inappropriate to assume that everyone's long term memory is formed in the same way

C

However, it can be argued that these case studies do support tulvings research into the different types of LTM as we can see that CW had his procedural memories intact, but his semantic and episodic memory were significantly impaired. this shows that there has to be different types of LTM stored in the brain otherwise all his types of memroy would have been similarly impacted.

LB

= Therefore, case studies, whilst highly informative, are not nomothetic because they can't be applied to the entire population, weakening the support evidence for types of long-term memory.

WEAKNESS of LTM - Explicit + Implicit

P

= Another weakness of Tulving's ideas is that further research suggests that there are only two stores of LTM, not 3

EV

= Cohen and Squire's research (1980) disagreed with the division of the LTM into episodic, procedural, and semantic memories because they believed that the episodic and semantic memories are stored together in what is called Declarative memory

EX

= This type of memory is explicit whereas procedural memories are implicit and are a separate memory store on their own as they don't require conscious inspection. The semantic and episodic stores both require some degree of conscious effort and the further subdivision of the episodic memory into the experimental episodic memory support this idea as these memories are based off of semantic memories which are associated with episodic events

LB

This shows that there may be a more simplified structure of long-term memory than Tulving proposed, challenging the notion of multiple distinct stores.