Lecture 6 - Long Term Memory

Long-Term Memory

Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Encompasses knowledge, skills, and experiences. More recent memories are more detailed.

LTM and WM

Works closely with working memory but appear to be separate processes.

Case of HM

Surgery which removed his hippocampus and amygdala to treat severe epilepsy. Resulted in anterograde amnesia. STM intact. Not all LTM functions impaired, e.g. retrieval from long-term semantic memory mostly intact.

Anterograde amnesia

Unable to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store.

Double dissociation memory

Functioning STM but cannot form new LTMs — case of H.M..

Serial position

The tendency to immediately recall the first and last items in a list better than the middle items.

Primacy effect

Remember words at the beginning of a list especially well. The primacy effect depends likely on long-term memory, owing to the tendency to rehearse the first few items.

Recency effect

The more accurate recall of items presented at the end of a series, items may still be encoded in STM. A delay or distractor task may interfere with this memory.

Implicit/non-declarative

Unconscious memory

- Procedural (skill) memory

- Priming: previous experience changes response without conscious awareness

Explicit/declarative

Conscious memory

- Episodic: personal events/episodes

- Semantic: facts, knowledge