Types of LTM

Who proposed the idea there are 3 types of LTM? AO1

Tulving

Episodic memory AO1

• Allows us to recall past events from our lives & 'travel back in time’

• Eg remembering your 6th birthday party

• Declarative (easy to put into words) & requires a conscious effort to recall

• Associated with pre-frontal cortex

Semantic memory AO1

• General knowledge & facts about the world around us

• Eg knowing Paris is the capital of France

• Declarative & requires a conscious effort to recall

• Associated with hippocampus & temporal lobe

Procedural memory AO1

• LTM store for our knowledge on how to do things & learned skills

• Eg remembering how to ride a bike

• Non-declarative & doesn’t require a conscious effort to recall

• Associated with motor cortex & cerebellum

Types of LTM strengths AO3

• P - evidence from brain scans support Tulving’s claim that there are different LTM stores

• E - Tulving directed participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned by a PET scan. He found that different memory tasks activated different brain areas. For example, episodic were found to be recalled from the hippocampus, semantic from temporal cortex & procedural from basil ganglia/cerebellum

• T - supports the idea that the LTM isn’t a unitary store as the MSM claims & episodic, semantic & procedural are distinct stores

• HOWEVER brain scans have poor temporal resolution as they measure blood flow changes over several seconds, where as memory processes may occur in fractions of a second. This makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about how these systems actually operate

• P - supported by case study evidence

• E - case studies of amnesia like Clive Wearing had difficulty recalling past events but his procedural memory was still intact as he remembered how to play the piano

• T - this supports Tulving’s theory that there are different memory stores in LTM as one store can be damaged, but other stores can remain unaffected

• HOWEVER case studies have a serious lack of control over variables in the study eg researchers don’t know what Clive’s memory was like before he developed amnesia. Also, case studies are focused on an individual’s unique experience so therefore it is difficult to generalise results about LTM to the wider pop & also difficult to determine the exact nature of LTM, reducing Clive’s reliability in evidence for LTM

Types of LTM limitations AO3

• P - research that contradicts Tulving’s theory & suggests there may only be 2 types of LTM

• Cohen & Squire argue that episodic & semantic are stored in one LTM store that can be consciously & declaratively recalled. However they agree that procedural memory is a separate store & doesn’t have to be consciously recalled

• T - this is an issue because it’s important to have an accurate theory of how memory works so we can apply practically to help people who suffer from amnesia & alzheimer’s/dementia