Declarative, Procedural, Semantic Memory In Psychology

Declarative, semantic and Procedural Memory

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Declarative, semantic and Procedural Memory

Declarative memory is one of the two main types of long-term memory. It is also known as the memory of facts, data, and events. This is because it involves the conscious recollection of memories. Declarative memory has the ability to both store and retrieves information (Riedel & Blokland, 2015). Declarative memory can be further categorized into two main types that are episodic memory and semantic memory. Episodic memory comprises the storage and recollection of the information that we have observed or is related to any specific event that occurred in our life. On the other hand, semantic memory comprises the memory of facts that a person gathers throughout their lives. An example of declarative memory from my experience is that I remember the time when our family planned to go to nanna’s house on our summer break. However, we forgot to bring the tickets and had to return home to the airport with huge disappointment.

Semantic memory is the type of memory that is associated with common knowledge such as facts and ideas (Yee & McRae, 2018). In the context of semantic memory, I know all the names of the states that are in the US. However, another example that I remember is of the time when I was sitting in my university psychology class. My professor asked the class to define the term Psychology. I raise my hand to tell my professor about what psychology is. My definition was very much accurate and related to the scientist's knowledge and so my professor asked me where I got that definition. It was probably from a book or research article and I told him that I used to read things of my interest usually. This retained in my memory as semantic memory and it was useful when my professor asked me about it. I still remember that moment and definition as it is stored in my semantic memory.

Procedural memory refers to the type of memory which helps people in performing certain types of tasks without the conscious awareness of previous experiences. It is a part of long-term memory and is also referred to as automatic memory. This type of memory stores information regarding the daily functions that a person performs such as walking or talking, etc (Quam & Lotto, 2018). This type of memory is acquired through the repetition of tasks regularly. However, many researchers describe this memory as muscle memory or body memory. The main difference between declarative and procedural memory is that procedural memory helps an individual in remembering how to drive a car even though you have not driven the car for years. While declarative memory helps in remembering the date when you have purchased your first car or the place from where you bought your car. Procedural memoirs are a lot problematic to explain. If somebody questioned you how you drive your car. You would need a lot of struggle to place this event into words. Though, you would perhaps be able to express the route more easily. Memorizing the physical procedure and to explain that procedure of how to do something is procedural memory. Remembering the procedural memory would also take you to go through the declarative memory. For instance, I was learning to ride a bike-riding when I was 4 years old. It was that time when I usually do not know how to balance myself. My father helped me to handle my bicycle in balancing. At that time he was always there when I lost control of my bicycle. This learning took all of my 33 days efforts and a lot of injuries to balance my bicycle. Despite the injuries, I was able to learn how to ride a bike.

References

Quam, C., Wang, A., Maddox, W. T., Golisch, K., & Lotto, A. (2018). Procedural-Memory, Working-Memory, and Declarative-Memory Skills Are Each Associated With Dimensional Integration in Sound-Category Learning. Frontiers in psychology, 9.

Riedel, W. J., & Blokland, A. (2015). Declarative memory. In Cognitive Enhancement (pp. 215-236). Springer, Cham.

Yee, E., Jones, M. N., & McRae, K. (2018). Semantic memory. Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, 3, 1-38.