Episodic Memory vs. Semantic Memory
Key Differences
Comparison Chart
.
Source
Units
Registration
Episodic Memory
Episodic memory is a type of memory wholly associated with the autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. Episodic memory is actually the collection of past events and experiences that happened at a particular time and place. This can be better understood by the example when a person remembers an event that happened at a party. This recalling of event enforces the individual to travel back in past moment to remember the event that happened at that particular time and place. Establishing an episodic memory involves multiple steps and each of steps then involves a separate system of the brain. Naturally a person able to link any particular detail with an episodic memory like how they felt, judge, time, place and other particulars. It is entirely different from semantic memory in a sense it is wholly associated with the personal memory of person about his personal events and memories only. The main components involve in the process of episodic memory are the recollection of the specific event. Recollection is basically the process that recalls the information related to a particular experience or event that has already occurred. It worth to point out here that it is the unique memory of a person about a specific event and will be different with from other persons on the same events and experiences.
Semantic Memory
Semantic memory itself is derived from the episodic memory and deals with vast memory issues as compared to the episodic memory. As compared to episodic memory that is more generalize towards too many personal experiences, semantic memory is about the structured record of concepts, information, knowledge, and meanings about those external world matters that a person has acquired. It refers to that factual knowledge and matters that a person shares with others and are not wholly dependent on the personal experiences. Scientists called it the long-term portion of our memory because sometimes we take the time to recall it as these is not associated with our personal experiences and events only. You can call about what happened on you birthday party six years ago, but it will be difficult for you to recall all syllabus while attempting annual examination. We can learn new ideas by implementing our knowledge learned already. The encoding process involved in both semantic and episodic memory is similar, but the end result is different because of applying different recalling techniques. In a nutshell, if a person holds semantic memory information, he has learned it, either directly or indirectly, in the past but he doesn’t know about the mnemonic information about how he get this and what was the episode of such learning.
