LONG TERM MEMORY

LONG TERM MEMORY

1. Coding - Usually semantic (by something's meaning)

2. Duration - Up to a lifetime

3. Capacity - Unlimited

4. TYPES OF LTM

   • SEMANTIC MEMORY
     • Our knowledge of the world
     • Not very personal
     • Constantly developing
     • E.g. Order of planets
   • EPISODIC MEMORY
     • Our ability to recall events from our own lives
     • Time-stamped so you know when they happened
     • Effort to recall episodic memories
     • Many different elements to them
   • PROCEDURAL MEMORY
     • Our memory for actions and skills
     • Can be recalled without effort
     • E.g. how to play football

5. EVALUATION

   • NEUROIMAGING EVIDENCE
     • Brain scan studies show that different types of memory are stored in different parts od the brain.
     • TULVING scanned participants brains using a PET scanner and found that when they completed different memory tasks that episodic and semantic memories were retrieved from the prefrontal cortex in the left hemisphere
       • This shows that there must be 3 different types of LTM because different parts of the brain are active
   • REAL - LIFE APPLICATIONS
     • Being able to identify different types of LTM allows psychologists to isolate and target certain types of memory in order to improve or better peoples lives
       • This helps people live independent lives
   • 3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF LTM OR 2?
     • Cohen and Squire disagree with Tulving and suggest that LTM is split into 2 types rather than 3; Declarative, memories that can consciously be recalled and non - declarative
       • This lowers the internal validity because semantic and episodic are part of the same memory store