CiCC - Memory - Long Term Memory

CiCC – Memory – Long Term Memory

Types of Long Term Memory:

• Episodic – When?

• Semantic – What?

• Procedural – How?

Episodic Memory

• Explicit memory (conscious access)

• Can describe episodic details (reconstruct)

• Can be prone to forgetting

• Associated with the Medial Temporal Lobe

(e.g remembering the last time you were at a fireworks display)

Semantic Memory

• Explicit knowledge (facts) about the world

• Network if connected concepts

• Associated with the lateral Temporal Cortex

(e.g remembering the capital of France)

Procedural Memory

• Skill Memory

• Implicit/unconscious memory

• Automatically retrieved

• Associated with the Basal Ganglia

(e.g memory of tying your shoe laces)

What drives memory encoding?

The brain learns when it is wrong (reinforcement – learning theory)

Episodic Memory Forgetting

Ebbinghaus – Quantified the decay of forgetting nonsense syllables (wid, zof)

Berens – Quantified what is forgotten and found we lose access but not precision.

Depending on context

Capitani – Primary Recency effect

Godden and Baddeley diver study – recall was better in the water when also learnt under water

Interactions between memory systems

Semantic influences on episodic memories

Episodic memories depend on semantic knowledge

Bartlett – Participants omitted supernatural events and rationalised the story.

Semantic processes can bias what is remembered

Loftus and Palmer – The more violent the word used by the researcher to describe a car crash was, the faster the participant assumed the cars were going.

Complementary Learning Systems (CLS)

Suggests that semantic memory cannot be updated too quickly (interference). Therefore explicit information is encoded by the episodic system first. “System Consolidation” slowly transforms memories from episodic 🡪 semantic