Hi, I'm Michael Corayer and this is Psych Exam Review. In this video we'll be
looking at the last box in our three box
model and this is the long-term memory
store. The first thing to note about
our long-term memory store is that it
seems to have an unlimited capacity by
that I mean it can never really be full
you know it's not the case that
somebody's memory can be so full that
they can't store anything new without
getting rid of something else right in
fact it seems that the more you know
then the more easily you can integrate
new information because you have more
things that you can connect it to and
that makes it actually easier to
remember new things so when we look
closely at long-term memory just like
with the other boxes in our model when
we look closely at it we see that
actually there's multiple parts to it so
when we talk about long-term memory we
can actually be referring to a number of
different things just like with sensory
memory you know that actually refers to
information from all of the senses just
like short-term memory then begin to
include working memory which then has
its components now if you look closely
at long-term memory we can roughly
divided it up into two main parts and
then we'll see that each of those have
other parts as well so the first type of
long-term memory that we can look at is
called explicit memory and you may also
see this called declarative memory and
so this is memory for things that we can
talk about things that we can declare
right so we hold information and we can
talk about right so the first type of
explicit memory that we have is semantic
memory and so what semantic memory
refers to is factual knowledge so if I
ask you what's the capital of France
right you can come up with a factual
answer that you've learned right or if I
ask you what a particular word means
right that would be a type of semantic
knowledge right factual knowledge of the
world names dates places word meanings
these types of things would all be
considered semantic memory but that's
not the only type of memory that you can
talk about we also have the next type of
explicit memory and this is our episodic
memory
an episodic memory refers to narratives
episodes so it's narratives and events
now a good way to think about this is if
I were to ask you what did you do
yesterday the answer that you're going
to give me is probably going to be an
episodic memory you're going to give me
some of the major events and sort of the
narrative and what it meant for you
you're not going to give me a list of
facts right I mean there's essentially
an infinite number of facts you could
tell me about what you did yesterday you
can tell me you know at 304 p.m. and 27
seconds I stood up and I took 15 steps
to the refrigerator and then I applied
four and a half pounds of force to the
handle in order to open it you know you
technically those are all facts about
your day that you could tell me when I
asked you what you did yesterday but
that's really not what I'm asking for
right what I'm asking for is the
narrative I must mean what happened to
you that was interesting yesterday well
what had meaning right and you're really
when we create our episodic memory we're
able to extract the gist of things right
we have all of this factual information
that we could encode we could draw upon
and yet we somehow automatically
condense it down it's really amazing
that our minds are able to do this right
things happen to us we spend an hour at
some event and we can just automatically
condense that down into you know a two
or three sentence description about what
it all meant when somebody says hey how
was you know how is that event you went
to right you don't have to sit through
all its like automatically then sifted
through and you can just spit out well
here's what it meant here was what was
interesting about it here's how it
influenced me right and it's amazing
that we can do this and so when a lot of
people talk about you know improving
their memory or wanting to you know
wishing they had a better memory or
something like that often the focus is I
think too much on this idea of factual
knowledge and semantic knowledge this
idea that you know if I could just
remember more facts you know everything
would be easier when in fact it seems
that that's the least important type of
explicit memory that we have I mean
facts are like you know there's an
infinite number of them and so we don't
want to remember all of them I mean what
would be the point right it's actually
more amazing that we can
sift through and pull out the meaningful
ones very easily okay so that's our
episodic memory and the next type of
memory that we have in our long-term
memory is our implicit memory or you may
see this referred to as non declarative
memory
okay so what do we mean by implicit
memory well the most common type of
implicit memory that is usually referred
to is what's called procedural memory
and so what procedural memory refers to
is our knowledge for how to do things
okay and this is implicit or non
declarative because we can't really talk
about it so if I ask you how do you ride
a bike I mean you know how to ride a
bike let's say but when it comes to
telling me you don't really have access
to that you know you can try to describe
well okay you put your feet here you sit
here you will hold the handlebars but
that's not really telling you how to do
it right you just have to do it right
it's a it's an implicit memory and that
you can perform it but you don't
necessarily have declarative access to
this and it's hard to explain how you do
it in the same way I might ask you how
do you tie your shoes no of course you
know how to tie your shoes but you might
find when you want to give me the
instructions you actually have to do it
and like watch what your hands are doing
and say okay I guess I do this and then
I pull this through here and like you
don't so when you do that behavior it's
not that you're calling up a list of
instructions and following them right
it's that you're doing it and from that
you can try to create a list of
instructions but it's not really how you
do it all right that's the difference
between this explicit and implicit
memory and there are other types of
implicit memory and when we get to the
unit on consciousness maybe I'll talk a
little bit about other types of
unconscious influences on behavior and
how those might be a part of our
implicit memory but for now if you know
the idea of procedural memory as being
an implicit memory that should be
sufficient now it's also interesting
when you think about how you learn this
right because if I ask you you know at
the end of the day let's say you were
learning to ride a bike I asked you at
the end of a you know what did you learn
today it can be true that you learned
how to ride a bike you got better at it
you've got more practice but you don't
come up with and you don't have any sort
of idea of how to explain you don't say
well today in my you know bike practice
I learned how to apply just enough
pressure with my left foot to the pedal
and shift my body weight in such a way
that I can maintain my balance and also
accelerate that could very well be what
you learned how to do that could be
something you got better at that day but
it's like not even in your awareness at
all that that's really what was
happening all you know is like it you
felt like it was easier to ride your
bike that day okay so those are the
different types of long-term memories
that we have and we see just like with
the other boxes you know when we look
closely at this sort of simplified model
we look closely at each box we see
there's actually much more complicated
than it first appears right and so you
might first look at the three box model
and think well we really understand
memory pretty well we've got this neat
little diagram it looks very simple but
actually each of those boxes is very
complicated and that's certainly the
case with this long-term memory store
and then we ask well how exactly do they
relate to one another how do we draw
things out of our long-term memory into
our short-term memory or into our
working memory how do we do that like
effortlessly and we integrate things
something happens to me and it reminds
me of some other memory like how is all
of that happening we don't really know
it's very complicated and that's even
before we try to figure out the biology
of how exactly is this physically
happening in our mind our neurons making
these new connections and how are they
storing memories and how are they being
retrieved properly you know it's really
a mystery and it's one of these things
that the closer we look at it the more
we learn about it it seems all we
learned is that it's actually more
complicated than we thought so don't get
the idea that just because we've covered
all of these three boxes now they like
you really have this you know we have
this amazing understanding of how memory
functions it's really not the case
there's still a lot of unanswered
questions that we have but it gives us a
simplification allows us to talk about
this and that sort of identify the areas
that we understand in the areas that of
course we need more explanation okay I
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