Describe and evaluate types of Long Term Memory (16 marks): Essay plan
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Course
Memory
Institution
AQA
This detailed essay plan has 4 main points that construct the 4 paragraphs for your essay. Each paragraph follows a point, evidence, explanation (P. E.E.) technique with support studies (e.g Tulving brain scans, Corkin 2002) and further evaluation of the results. The main focus of the points are ...
1. Evidence from scans
A01: Episodic - details of the event, emotions related to it, time stamped
Semantic - general knowledge about the world
Procedural - acquired skills (brushing teeth) - implicit (recalled unconsciously)
A03: Tulving used fMRI to identify which types of memory are associated with particular
brain areas. Episodic - hippocampus, semantic - frontal lobe (parahippocampal cortex),
procedural - cerebellum.
Support for distinct types due to different brain regions
2. Evidence from case studies offers further support for different types of LTM
A01: semantic and episodic are declarative (can be put into words) and procedural is non-
declarative
A03: Scoville and Milner 1957 HM, ability to form new LTM was affected by the destruction
of his hippocampus. After the surgery, he could still form new procedural memories but not
episodic or semantic. Corkin (2002) showed that HM could draw a figure reflected in a mirror
(a procedural memory) didn't have any memory of how he acquired the skill.
Supports the distinction between procedural and declarative memories, and hence the
existence of multiple types of LTM
3. Semantic and episodic memory have similarities are distinct
Patients with Alzheimer's disease had the ability to form new semantic memories but not
episodic (Patterson 2007) + 3 young people who had damage to their hippocampus but
avoided damage to the nearby parahippocampal cortices. All severe episodic amnesia, but
were able to attend school, learn factual information, therefore semantic was intact.
Semantic memory is less dependent on hippocampus than episodic and so it is biological
evidence that the two types are distinct. However, similarities between them suggest than
might not be completely separate (both declarative and implicit). Perhaps, episodic
memories may be a gateway to semantic as we acquire knowledge through personal
experience.
4. A limitation is that most of the research support comes from brain-damaged
patients.
The brain damage itself destroys the very aspect of the brain being studied. Problems with
before and after comparison. Brain injury is traumatic, which may change the behaviour.
Difficult to pay attention and therefore underperform. Cannot generalise such unique cases
to wider populations and create nomothetic laws. Thus, low-ecological validity.
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