Types of LTM

TYPES OF LONG TERM MEMORY

Description

Episodic memories - personal memories for events forming a sequence. They include details of context and emotion.

Semantic memories - knowledge shared by everyone, which are abstract and concrete. They are acquired via episodic memories.

Procedural memories - knowing how to do something. They become automatic through repetition and are disrupted if you think about them.

Evaluation

- Episodic memory is associated with the temporal lobe (including the hoppocampus), in addition to the frontal lobe.

- Semantic memory is associated with the temporal lobe only.

- Procedural memory is associated with the cerebellum, basal ganglia and the limbic system.

- The study of HM showed new procedural memories could be formed, but not semantic or episodic ones.

- Evidence from amnesia patients shows semantic memories can form independently from episodic memories.

​​​​​​Further Evaluation

- Brain damage evidence is unreliable as they cant be certain the causal part of the brain is identified.

- Perceptual-representation system may be a kind of implicit memory related to priming.