What are the different types of memory and what happens when memory is damaged?
Features of short-term and long-term memory and types of amnesia: retrograde and anterograde amnesia, and what they show about memory.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 2, covering the features of short-term and long-term memory and the two types of amnesia (retrograde and anterograde) and what they reveal about memory.
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What this dot point is asking
Edexcel wants you to know the features of short-term and long-term memory and the two types of amnesia: retrograde (loss of old memories) and anterograde (inability to form new ones). You should explain what amnesia reveals about how memory is structured, linking it to the idea of separate stores in the multi-store model.
Recap: the features of STM and LTM
The two types of amnesia
The simplest way to keep them apart is direction in time. Retrograde looks backwards: the person loses access to parts of their past, such as events from before an accident, although they can still form new memories. Anterograde looks forwards: the person can recall their past and hold information briefly, but cannot lay down new long-term memories, so new people, places and events are forgotten soon after. Some patients show both types after serious damage.
What amnesia tells us about memory
Amnesia gives strong evidence about the structure of memory.
- A person with anterograde amnesia who has normal STM and intact old LTM but cannot make new long-term memories shows that forming new long-term memories is a separate process from holding information short-term, supporting separate stores (as in the multi-store model).
- The fact that old long-term memories can survive while new ones cannot be made suggests there is a specific brain mechanism for transferring information into long-term storage, which can be damaged on its own.
This is why brain-damage case studies are so valuable: they reveal which parts of memory can be separated, which a healthy brain hides.
Try this
Q1. Which type of amnesia is the loss of memories from before the damage? [1 mark]
- Cue. Retrograde amnesia.
Q2. State the approximate duration of short-term memory. [1 mark]
- Cue. About 18 to 30 seconds without rehearsal.
Q3. Explain one thing anterograde amnesia tells us about memory. [2 marks]
- Cue. Forming new long-term memories is a separate process, supporting separate STM and LTM stores.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of Pearson Edexcel exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Edexcel 20192 marksExplain the difference between retrograde and anterograde amnesia. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 2-mark item rewards a clear contrast between the two types.
Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memories formed before the brain damage or event, so the person cannot recall things from their past. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new long-term memories after the damage, so the person cannot remember new events, even though older memories may be intact. The difference is the direction in time: retrograde looks backwards (old memories lost), anterograde looks forwards (new memories cannot be made).
Markers reward both types defined and the contrast made explicit (memories before the event versus the ability to make new memories after it).
Edexcel 20224 marksExplain what a case of anterograde amnesia can tell us about the structure of memory. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 4-mark Explain item rewards linking the symptoms of amnesia to the idea of separate memory stores.
In anterograde amnesia, a person can hold information for a short time and recall events from before the damage, but cannot transfer new information into long-term memory. This supports the idea that short-term and long-term memory are separate stores, because one (forming new long-term memories) is damaged while the other (short-term memory and old long-term memories) still works. It also suggests there is a specific brain process for moving information into long-term storage.
Markers reward describing the pattern (intact STM and old LTM, but no new LTM), and explaining that this supports separate stores and a transfer process, consistent with the multi-store model.
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Sources & how we know this
- Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Psychology (1PS0) specification — Pearson Edexcel (2017)