on, transformation, and recoding are activities that have been found to enhance recall." (Asken, 1987) Information that is stored in LTM is stored in the same form as it was originally encoded. Major forms of storage are episodic memory and semantic memory. Episodic memory involves remembering particular incidents, such as visiting the doctor a week ago. Semantic memory concerns knowledge about the world. It holds meanings of words or any general information learned. Knowledge of the capitals of all the states would be stored in semantic memory. A Canadian psychologist, Endel Tulving discovered that there was more activity in the front of the brain when episodic memories were being retrieved, compared to more activity towards the back of the brain with semantic memory. Retrieval, the third process related to LTM, is the finding and retrieving of information from long-term storage. The cues necessary to retrieve information from memory are the same cues that were used to encode the material. For some, positive memories are recalled through music. Certain songs remind people of special times spent with friends. Couples sometimes have songs that remind them of their time spent together. Everyone has some way of remembering good times from the past. Along with positive memories come the negative ones, which are suppressed deep in our minds. Another word for negative is traumatic, an experience beyond “the range of usual human experience,” (cc, 1994) and is brought about with intense fear, terror and helplessness. Examples include a serious threat to one’s life (or that of one’s children, spouse, etc.), rape, military combat, natural or accidental disasters, and torture. So how does trauma affect memory? People use their natural ability to avoid concern of a traumatic experience while the trauma is happening. This causes the memories about the traumatic events to emerge later. People with Post Traumatic Stress Disorde...
