Memory is one of the most complex and important cognitive processes for the human being. It allows us to store data about the world around us, remember the birthday of our relatives or when and where the wedding of a friend was celebrated.
It is a key function for our survival. Would you imagine living without memory? We would remember absolutely nothing of what we have learned and would have to constantly relearn.
All of us, in a more or less profound way, are familiar with the concept of memory, but could you explain what episodic memory and semantic memory are? Keep reading this Psychology-Online article in which we tell you the meaning and difference between episodic and semantic memory.
Memory constitutes the ability of animals to acquire, store and retrieve different types of knowledge (Ruiz-Vargas, 2010, pg22)[1]. Both episodic and semantic memory are classified within the long term memory, which is a relatively permanent information storage system that allows a person to store, retrieve and use skills and knowledge long after they are acquired. Long-term memory according to Squire's classification (2004)
The episodic memory is the one in which the knowledge related to facts of a person's life. It is circumscribed to time and space. It is the type of memory that intervenes when remembering how, when and where was our first date or where we were and what we were doing when the state of alarm was decreed for the pandemic of the covid. It is the memory of anecdotes, of experiences.
Semantic memory is the other type of declarative memory, within the long-term memory classification. Semantic memory is that in which knowledge about the world is found. It is the memory that stores the information related to the concepts. It also participates in complex cognitive processes such as object recognition and / or the use of language. This type of memory we store knowledge such as what a table is, what it is for, where the United States is and what its capital is, or what types of animals exist in the world.
What is the difference between episodic memory and semantic memory? Although both types of memory are part of declarative long-term memory, you will have seen in the previous sections that there are differences between them. We present below the main differences following González Rodríguez, B. and Muñoz-Marrón, E. (2008)[3]:
1. Spatiotemporal parameters
Although we have already commented on it in the description of each type of memory, episodic memory would be linked to a space-time context and semantic memory would be independent of this aspect. For example, when you remember the birth of your daughter, this memory is linked to a specific date and a specific place. However, the meaning of "house" is not linked to any of these parameters.
2. Vulnerability to oblivion
The episodic memory would be more vulnerable to oblivion than semantic memory. That is, it is easier to forget what we were doing the day Spain won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa than to forget how many legs a dog has.
3. Content organization
The organization of content in semantic memory follows a conceptual pattern while the organization in episodic memory is spatiotemporal. That is, the information of semantic memory is organized by concepts (what is a cow, cow belongs to the category animals, what is a hammer, what is it used for, etc.) while the information of episodic memory is organized according to events in a place and at a time (What did I do the day my cousin got married, what plans did I have last weekend when I went to my town, etc.).
4. Information learned or not explicitly
In the case of episodic memory, the facts have been explicitly encoded in memory, however, in memory semantics there may be information that although it has not been learned explicitly, it can be found implicit when contents. This is, in episodic memory we have had to live the events or they have had to tell us; in semantic memory, you have acquired the concept From "goldfinch", you know that it is a type of bird, but you did not need to know that it flies because it is already an inherent characteristic of the concept.
In this article, you will find more information about memory types.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
