Types of long-term memory

Types of long-term memory

1. Episodic Memory

   • Term 'episodic' comes from 'episode'
   • Recollection of personal experiences
     • May recall time and place of event, and who was there
   • May recall context surrounding the event- e.g. what happened just before/after and why you were there
     • May recall associated emotions felt at the time.
   • Episodic memories- three elements= specific details of the event, the context and the emotion

2. Semantic Memory

   • About knowing 'that'- instead of knowing that first day of school was scary, you know that people of a certain age go to school and 2+2=4
   • Three examples of semantic memory= knowledge about the world which is shared by everyone instead of the personal kind of knowledge (episodic memories)
   • Relate to things- such as the function of objects- may relate to what behaviour is appropriate- e.g. social customs but also may relate to abstract concepts (maths and language)
   • Semantic memories begin as episodic memories- acquire knowledge based on personal experiences
     • Gradual transition from episodic to semantic- memory slowly loses association to particular events- inforamtion can be generalised as a semantic memory.

3. Procedural Memory

   • Concerned with skills- e.g. knowing how to tie a shoe lace
     • Remembering how to do something rather than than knowing rules of what to do.
   • Typically acquired through repetition and practice
   • Implicit- unlike semantic and episodic
   • Less aware of these memories- they have become automatic
     • If you try to think too much about a procedural memory it prevents you acting it out
       • Attention to the step-by-step procedure disrupts the well-learned automatic performance.
         • Important for procedural memories to be automatic- focus our attention on other tasks while performing everyday skills

4. Evaluation

   • Evidence from brain scans
     • Distinction made between 3 kinds of memory- supported by research using brain scanning techniques
     • Different areas of brain are active when different kinds of LTMs are active
     • Episodic memory- associated with hippocampus and other parts of temporal lobe where hippocampus is located- also associated with activity of frontal lobe
     • Memories of different elements of a particular event- distributed in other areas of the brain but they are all connected by the hippocampus to form and episode
     • Semantic memory- relies on temporal lobe
     • Procedural memory activation- associated with cerebellum (involved in control of fine motor skills and the motor cortex)
     • Basal ganglia and limbic system- involved in this kind of learning
   • Distinguishing procedural and declarative memories
     • Case study of HM- ability to form LTMs was affected by destruction of his hippocampus bu retained pre-existing LTMs
       • After surgery- HM could still form new procedural memories but not episodic of smeantic memories
         • E.g. he was able to learn how to draw a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror
           • Procedural memory- although he had no memory that he had learned this