Types of long-term memory

Types of long-term memory

1. Episodic: LT memory for personal events. This includes when the events occurred and the people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories can be received consciously, with effort. They are time-stamped- you remember when and what happened.

2. semantic memory; about the knowledge of the world . This includes facts and our knowledge of what concepts mean. semantic memory includes important number of concepts like "orange", "animals." not time-stamped"- we don't really remember when we found out what a cat is. It is less vulnerable to distortion than episodic memory. Recalled consciously.

3. Procedural memory: A LT memory store for our knowledge of how to do things. This includes learned skills. We recall these memories without making a conscious/deliberate effort. E.g, driving a car. our ability to do this becomes automatic through practice. We change gear without having even realising we've done so. Quite hard to explain to someone else.

4. strength is that there's support from case studies of HM (Henry Molaison) and Clive wearing. Episodic memories in both men were impaired sue to brain damage. Semantic memories were unaffected. They understood the meaning of words. e.g, HM couldn't recallstroking a Dog half an hour earlier, but he knew what a Dog was. Their procedural memories were intact. For example Wearing still remembered how to play a piano. This evidence support tulvings view that there are different components in the LTM.

5. limitation is that there is conflicting research findings in locating the different types of LTM to areas of brain. Buckner and Peterson looked at evidence regarding location of semantic and episodic memories. They found semantic memory is located in left side of prefrontal cortex and episodic on right. However, Tulving proposed it the other way around.