The duration of LTM is unknown and can not be measured.

It is said that
LTM can remember the faces of classmates and when showed a picture of
school mates and could still recall them after 40 years.

Ice cream melts unless its

kept cool.
I remember that hot day when my Semantic memory
ice-cream melted faster than I
could eat it
Episodic memory

Bahrick et al (1975): duration in long term memory

Aims: bahrick et al aimed to investigate the duration of short term memory (VTLM) to see if the memories
could be lost over several decades, and thus support the assumption that the duration of memory can be a life
time. They aim to test VTLM in a way that showed external validity but testing memory for real life
information.

Procedure: and opportunity sample of 392 Americans ex-high school students aged from 17-74 years was
formed. They were tested in a number of ways:
1. free recall of the names of as many of their former classmates as possible
2. A photo recognition test where they were asked to identify former classmates in a set of 50 photos,
only some of which were there former classmates.
3. A name recognition test
4. A name and photo recognition test.

These tests assessed because the time since leaving school was up to 48 years participants accuracy (and thus
duration of memory) was assed by company their responses with high school pictures of there former
classmates.

Findings: bahrick et al found 90% accuracy in face and name recognition even with those participants and left
school 34 years previously after 48 years thus declined to 80% for name recognition and 40% for face
recognition free recall was considerably lower 60% accurate after 15 years and 30% accurate after 48 years
Conclusion
• The findings show those classmates are rarely forgotten recognition cues have
been given.
• The finding also support the claim recognition is better than recall
• It can be concluded that memory may not be as unreliable or confoundable as
often claimed
• However the findings that free recall was only 30% after 48 years indicates
that many of the memory where fairly weak.

Criticism
• Before this research by bahrick et al. it had often been assumed. That
information could remain in LTM for a very long periods of time
• Class mates faces and names are a very particular type of memory information
they might have emotional significance and there will have been opportunity
for a great deal of rehearsal, given the daily contact classmates will have
experienced. The same is not true of other types of information
• Compared to the vast majority of memory research which taker place in the
lab, bahrick et als. Research has high mumdune realism asking participants to
recall their classmates tests teal life memory this the is more reprehensive of
natural behaviour and sop has high external validity this it may be possible to
generalise the finding to other settings

Evaluation of multi store model

Limitations: it is assumed that information in short term memory store is encoded in
terms of its sound (acoustic coding) where as information in the long term store is
encoded in terms of its meaning (semantic coding) and there is an arrow leading from
one store to the other it seems like magic as it proceeds along an arrow.

Strengths: there is convincing evidence that the capacity of two stores is radically
different the capacity of the short term store is about items (Jacobs, 1887 Simon,
1974) in contrast there are no known limits to the capacity of the long store, and
standing et al (1970) found that 90% out of 2560 pictures resented once each were
remembered in a test of long term memory.

Limitations: The model is oversimplified its assumption that there is a single long
term memory store. As we have seen (e.g. spiers et al 2001) it makes sense to identify
several long term memory store, episodic memory semantic memory; declarative
knowledge and procedural knowledge. Atkinson and shiffron 1968 focused almost
exclusively and declarative knowledge and had practically nothing to say about
procedural knowledge

Evaluation of multi store model:

Strength: Evidence from brain damaged patients support the distinction between
short term memory and long term memory. Patients with amnesia have problems with
long term memory but not with short term memory, and some other brain damaged
patients have problems, with short term memory but not with long term memory
(Shallice and Warrington 1970).

Limitations: The model argues that the transfer of information from short term
memory is through rehearsal however in daily life most people devote very little time
to active rehearsal, although they are constantly storing away new information in long
term memory.
Rehearsal may describe what happens when psychologists conduct experiments in
laboratories but this isn’t true to life

Strength: This is evidence that encoding is different in short and long term memory.
For example baddeley (1966) found evidence for acoustic or sound encoding in short
term memory and semantic memory or meaning encoding on long term memory.

Episodic and semantic memory

Tulving (1972) argued for a distinction between two types of long term memory:
episodic and semantic.

-Episodic memory has an autobiographical flavour. It contains the memories of

specific events of episodic occurring in a particular place at a particular time e.g. what
you did yesterday or what you had for lunch.

-In contrast semantic memory contains information about our knowledge of the
world, e.g. the rules and the words of our language, how to calculate percentages, how
to set the video, the capital of France and the stars of lord of the rings.

Varha-khadem et al. (1997) studied two children, Beth and Jon both of whom suffered
brain damage at a very young age Beth and Jon had a very episodic memory for the
day’s activities, and television programmes. However, their semantic memory was
fine, as shown by the fact that they attended ordinary schools and has normal
language development and factual knowledge. This suggests that episodic and
semantic memories are different forms of long term memory. Research such as that on
Beth and Jon indicates that episodic and semantic memory are separate from each
other nevertheless, they depend heavily on each other. For example remembering
what you had for lunch last Sunday basically involves episodic memory. However
semantic memory is also involved as your knowledge of the world is needed to
identify the different food you ate.