Procedural, semantic and episodic memory
Memory
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Welcome to Human Nature, the illustrated psychology newsletter.
Today we’re diving deeper into long-term memory to explore its three different types: procedural, semantic and episodic memory.
Procedural, semantic and episodic memory
What it is: Long-term memory can be divided into procedural (implicit) and declarative (explicit) memories, which can be further divided into semantic and episodic memories.
Procedural memory is the implicit memory involved in knowing how to do things. It does not require conscious recall and is automatic. An example of procedural memory is knowing how to ride a bike.
Semantic memory is a type of explicit memory which is responsible for storing facts about the world. It involves conscious recall of information, and is therefore declarative (you can put it into words). Examples of semantic memory include multiplication tables, knowing that the Earth revolves around the sun or that we see the world with our eyes.
Episodic memory is also a form of explicit memory and is involved in recalling events of our lives and the time and place where they took place. For example, the day you celebrated your 7th birthday is an episodic memory.
How it was discovered: The distinction between procedural, semantic and episodic memory was proposed by Tulving in 1972.
Evidence for Tulving’s theory come from experiments with amnesic patients. Patients with anterograde amnesia have trouble forming new memories. However, two researchers named Cohen and Squire wanted to find out if all memories were equally affected by the condition, or if some types of memories were more prone to degradation then others.
In 1980, they tested the ability of amnesic patients to form new procedural memories. They asked participants to perform a mirror-reading task, where words were shown the way they would be reflected in a mirror (like the way the word ‘Ambulance’ is written on an ambulance vehicle to be legible from car mirrors). They performed the task three days in a row, and were tested on it three months later. Although they had no memory of having performed the task before (a declarative, episodic memory), their performance on the mirror-reading task was the same as controls (non-amnesic participants), showing that they were able to learn a new procedural skill.
How it works: Declarative (explicit) memory can be understood as “knowing that”, while procedural (implicit) memory can be seen as “knowing how”. For instance, “knowing that” you celebrated your 7th birthday at home with your mom, dad and best friends is an episodic memory; “knowing that” 7 x 7 = 49 is a semantic memory. On the other hand, “knowing how” to ride a bike is a procedural memory. Experiments such as the one above show that these two types of memories involve different processes.
Thank you for reading, see you next time!
Sources:
Episodic and semantic memory. (Organization of Memory, (pp. 381–403). Tulving, 1972).
In cognitive psychology, memory refers to the processes involved in the encoding, storage and retrieval of information. Memory is central to our understanding of the world. Without a recollection of the past, we can’t make sense of the present or make decisions about the future.