Types of long term memory

What does episodic memory store?

Events from our lives

What does it mean for episodic memories to be time stamped?

You remember where and when they happened

What do you have to do to recall episodic memories?

Have to make a conscious effort

What does semantic memory store?

Knowledge of the world

Are semantic memories time stamped?

No

What does procedural memory store?

Memories for actions and skills

Why is explaining the step by step procedure hard for procedural memory?

Do it without conscious recall

How do skills/actions in your procedural memory become automatic?

With practice

A03 Limitation: Lack validity

Researchers lack control in clinical case studies

Don’t know anything about the persons memory before brain damage

Clinical studies are limited in what they can tell us about different types of LTM

A03 Strength: Case study evidence of different types of LTM

Clinical studies of amnesia e.g Patient HM showed difficulty recalling events from the past

But semantic and procedural memories were unaffected

Supports the view that there are different memory stores in LTM and one store can be damaged but not the others

A03 Strength: Helping people with memory problems

Memory loss in old age linked to episodic memory - harder to recall recent memories as past episodic memories are intact

Psychologist carried out an intervention for older people targeting episodic memory which improved their memory compared to a control group

Distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed

A03 Strength: Support for the different categories of LTM

Tulving said that episodic memory is a subcategory of semantic memory

However another psychologist said that some patients with Alzheimers disease can form new episodic memories but not semantic ones

Episodic/semantic memories are similar but ultimately different forms of LTM