SS3712 Chap.6 Long-Term Memory Systems
Long-Term Memory Systems
Classify memory by its expression
Long-term memory includes conscious episodic and semantic forms as well as implicit influences such as skills and priming. Serial-position patterns reveal contributions from rehearsal and immediate availability.
Dissociations are especially important because preserved performance on an indirect task can coexist with poor conscious recollection, showing why one undifferentiated store is insufficient.
Read the serial-position curve as two mechanisms
Items near the start of a list receive more rehearsal and are more likely to enter long-term memory, producing primacy.
Items at the end remain available when immediate recall begins, producing recency. A filled delay before recall should reduce recency more than primacy because the final items are displaced while earlier learning remains. This manipulation is more informative than the curve alone: it links each section of the pattern to a proposed source.
Presentation rate, list length and the order of report can change the balance, so those features belong in the method description.
Separate explicit forms by the experience of access
Episodic memory carries contextual information and a sense of reliving. Semantic memory supports facts, concepts and meanings without replaying when they were learned. The systems interact.
Repeated episodes can yield general knowledge as common structure is extracted, while existing knowledge shapes what an event means and which details are retained. A useful test asks for both content and source.
Knowing an answer with no memory of its learning context is different from recollecting the episode in which the answer was acquired, even when the spoken response is identical.
Look for dissociation across direct and indirect tests
Procedural memory appears as improved skill, priming as changed speed or accuracy, and conditioning as a learned response relation. None requires deliberate recollection.
An amnesic participant may deny seeing a sequence yet become faster on it across trials. The persuasive result compares that gain with an untrained sequence so general practice cannot explain improvement. Direct and indirect tasks should be matched for sensory and response demands where possible. The conclusion is preserved expression of a particular learning form, not that conscious and unconscious systems never interact.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Serial-position curve
- 02
Primacy and recency
- 03
Episodic memory
- 04
Semantic knowledge
- 05
Procedural learning
- 06
Priming and conditioning
Worked example · free
Infer preserved learning from performance
- 2Interpret the recognition result.
- 2Interpret the performance gain.
- 2Name the needed control.
Key terms
- Episodic Memory
- Conscious recollection of events with information about their personal context and source.
- Semantic Memory
- Knowledge of facts and concepts accessible without reliving the episode in which they were learned.
- Procedural Memory
- Long-term learning expressed through improved skill performance rather than deliberate recollection.
Long-Term Memory Systems FAQ
What creates primacy and recency effects?
Early items receive more rehearsal and are more likely to reach long-term memory, producing primacy. Final items remain active when immediate recall begins, producing recency. A filled delay should reduce recency more strongly because it displaces the last items.
How do episodic and semantic memory differ?
Episodic memory includes a situated sense of reliving and source, while semantic memory supports knowing without replaying the learning event. Repeated episodes can build semantic structure, and existing knowledge shapes what an episode means, so the systems interact.
What does priming demonstrate?
Priming shows that prior exposure can change speed or accuracy on a later task even when the person does not consciously recognise the earlier item. Its interpretation needs a matched baseline so ordinary familiarity or response repetition does not explain the effect.
Assessment move
Draw the memory taxonomy, then attach a test to each branch. Change one direct test into an indirect test and predict how an amnesia pattern could dissociate them. For serial position, sketch what immediate recall and delayed recall should do to the curve. Add a filled-delay condition and explain why it targets recency rather than primacy.
Write two responses to the same word, one requiring recollection and one measuring priming, so material is held constant while expression changes. When reviewing patient evidence, name the preserved function as carefully as the impaired one and include a matched control sequence. This prevents a general practice effect from being mistaken for procedural learning and turns the taxonomy into experimental logic.
Say whether every final measure requires conscious access before assigning it to the explicit branch.
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