3.2 Fundamental Distinctions in the Study of Memory

As cognitive theorists began more and more to grapple with issues in the learning and recall of meaningful materials, they quickly faced questions about the nature of knowledge and how it is stored in memory. Are there basic differences, for instance, between "knowing" something and "knowing how to do" something? Does personal experience lead to different storage and retrieval than the more abstracted general knowledge of, say, subject areas such as history and chemistry? Is memory for language different than memory for images? Are there differences between memory for events just experienced and those experienced some time in the past? Questions such as these have led to a number of distinctions. Among the most useful and enduring have been those between episodic and semantic memory, between declarative and procedural knowledge, between language‑based and imagery‑based systems in memory, and between short‑term and long‑term memory.