Types of Long Term Memory | AQA Psychology | A-level

hey everyone welcome back to Verity mind this video is part of a series exploring our memory we've previously explored Atkinson and chiffrin's multi-star model of memory and the working memory model proposed by badly and hitch in this video we're going to explore long-term memory but this time there is no model we're going to look at but rather explore the research into different types of long-term memory there are three types that you need to know let's Dive In the first type of long-term memory is known as procedural memory procedural memories relate to motor or movement skills and actions it refers to memories of actions that are carried out in a certain order you could also describe them as knowing how to do things so these will be things like knowing how to swim the breaststroke or riding a bike interestingly procedural memories are also non-declarative in that they can be more difficult to describe verbally and put into words because when you're doing the action you're not thinking about the various steps you're just doing it for example ask someone to explain to you how to swim the breaststroke the first thing they will do is show you the action perhaps through a game of Charades rather than verbally describe step by step the procedure you know how to do it you just don't know how you know how to do it I'll solve procedural memories are unavailable for conscious inspection we often do them automatically without much aware awareness of the memory when we swim or ride a bike we're not thinking about the memories of swimming and riding a bike we don't have much of an awareness of the memory of how to do it another type of long-term memory is known as episodic memory it's called episodic because it refers to Memories relating to a specific episode or event that happened in your life these memories have a particular time and place episodic memories are an example of an autobiographical memory because these memories are personal to you for example you know that you went to Cornwall for your summer holiday when you were 12 and some of the things that you did this is an episodic memory because you are recalling the events that took place perhaps you went surfing and had an ice cream on the beach or played in The Rock pools you can remember where it took place and at a specific point in time in contrast to procedural memories episodic memories are declarative they are much easier to put into words additionally they can be consciously inspected you have an awareness of the specific personal memory that happened and can explore that memory in your mind lastly there are semantic memories he's called semantic memory because it relates to meaning semantic memories are fact-based memories for Meaningful information such as knowing the meaning of a word it also includes general knowledge about the world for example knowing that the capital of Sweden is Stockholm is a semantic memory and also knowing about these different types of long-term memory is also a semantic memory because you are remembering the fact-based information about the definition of a term semantic memories differ from episodic memories in that we may not be able to recall where we learned and encoded the semantic memories particularly as semantic memories are not personal memories but semantic memories like episodic memories are easy to describe in words and so are declarative now there are some other rather interesting distinctions that we can make between these types of long-term memory firstly procedural memories are thought to be much more resistant to forgetting and Amnesia something we're about out to see further in a moment secondly some research suggests that the different types of long-term memory are located in different areas of the brain something we will also see in a moment so here is a table that helps summarize what we've explored about the different types of long-term memory now let's explore some of the supporting evidence for these different types of long-term memory the famous memory researcher endell tolvin reported data from studies that use pet scans participants were asked to think of a specific memory whilst the blood flow in their brain was being monitored when participants thought of episodic memories remember these the personal autobiographical memories such as what you did on your birthday or your last summer holiday a different part of the brain was activated compared to when participants thought of semantic memories remember these are these fact-based memories with no personal reference episodic memories tended to activate the right prefrontal cortex whereas the semantic memories tended to activate the left prefrontal cortex this nicely demonstrated how there are different types of long-term memory and how different parts of the brain are involved other supporting evidence comes from the famous case of hm who we've talked about in previous videos we use the case of hm as evidence to support the multi-star model and how it has separate stars for short-term and long-term memory however the case study also provides evidence of different types of long-term memory during his childhood hm had been involved in a bicycle accident which resulted in hm developing epilepsy many of the seizures he experienced worsened to the point where medication was having little impact and left him with the option of surgery however when hm had specific parts of his brain removed notably the hippocampus whilst it helped reduce his seizures it left him with problems with his memory hm had what was called anterograde Amnesia which is the loss of the ability to form new memories in short hm had problems forming some types of long-term memory but not all a PhD student by the name of Brenda Milner was tasked with studying hm as part of her investigations she asked him to complete a procedural memory task an action movement task this involved tracing a line in a star whilst only being able to watch his hand movements in a mirror quite the challenge if you've never had a go as you might expect hm performed poorly on the task but over time as he did it again and again he got a lot better at the task suggesting that he had been able to form long-term memory for knowing how to do the task a procedural memory however astonishingly each time he came to do the task he had no memory of ever having done it before no episodic memories Brenda Milner has been able to conclude from the case of hm how there are different types of long-term memory semantic memories because he would forget the person he had been talking to to the moment he left excuse me do I know you episodic memories because he had no memories of the time and place of ever having completed the task before and procedural memories because he created new long-term memories for the tracing line task as his ability improved our final piece of supporting evidence involves one of the most severe cases of Amnesia ever recorded Clive Waring was a highly skilled musician and conductor but in 1985 he suffered from a viral infection that attacked his nervous system specifically his hippocampus and as a result he developed anterograde and retrograde amnesia in terms of his anterograde Amnesia which is the lack of ability to form new memories he's thought to have around a 30-second episodic memory capacity for example he would be talking with his wife and then she would leave the room her return though would be greeted with a joy as if he hadn't seen her for a very long time I've never seen a doctor the whole time he had completely forgotten that he'd just been having a conversation with her in terms of his retrograde amnesia which is the loss of past memories many of his memories that he had before 1985 had also been lost he knows he has children but he cannot remember their names he's lost the semantic memories however interestingly Clive waring's procedural memories fine maintaining his ability to perform complex piano pieces so just like hm the case study of Clive Waring provides a third piece of evidence for the existence of different types of long-term memory his episodic memory being severely impaired lacking the ability to create new episodic long-term memories but these procedural memories remaining largely intact however we do need to be cautious with evidence from case studies like Clive wearing and hm this is because they are rare and unusual studies of an individual and as such the findings about long-term memory may not generalize to The Wider population so now you hopefully understand something of how your long-term memory works but why do we forget why is it that when we walk out of our bedroom to go and get something but when we get to the kitchen we've completely forgotten but the moment we walk back into our bedroom we remember again well to learn about why we forget click the video on the screen now I hope you found this video helpful see you in the next one

Channel: Bear it in MIND

Views: 6,268

Keywords: psychology, a-level psychology, memory, memory revision, psychology paper 1, long term memory, Tulving, Patient HM, Clive Wearing, Procedural memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, psychology revision, declarative memory, non-declarative memory, tutor2u psychology, psychboost, AQA psychology, types of long term memory, bear it in mind, amnesia, retrograde amnesia, anterograde amnesia

Id: beW8uTcONW4

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2023