Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 SEMANTIC NETWORKS 
Try to recall, for a moment, as many things as you can think of that are the color 
red. Now pull from your memory the names of as many fruits as you can recall. 
Did the same item appear when you did both tasks? For many people, an apple 
comes to mind in both cases since it fi ts equally well in each category. And the fact 
that you might have thought of an apple when doing the fi rst task makes it even 
more likely that you’ll think of it when doing the second task. 
It’s actually quite amazing that we’re able to retrieve specifi c material from the 
vast store of information in our long-term memories. According to some memory 
researchers, one key organizational tool that allows us to recall detailed information 
from long-term memory is the associations that we build between different pieces of 
information. In this view, knowledge is stored in  semantic networks  , mental repre-
sentations of clusters of interconnected information (Collins & Quillian, 1969; Collins 
& Loftus, 1975; Cummings, Ceponiene, & Koyama, 2006).
semantic networks
Mental represen-
tations of clusters of interconnected 
information.
Study Alert
Use Figure 5 to help clarify 
the distinctions between 
the diff erent types of long-
term memory.
FIGURE 5 
Long-term memory can be 
subdivided into several diff erent types. 
What type of long-term memory is 
involved in your recollection of the 
moment you fi rst arrived on your 
campus at the start of college? What 
type of long-term memory is involved 
in remembering the lyrics to a song, 
compared with the tune of a song?
Long-term memory
Declarative memory
(factual information)
Example: George Washington was 
the first president of the United
States
Procedural memory
(skills and habits)
Example: Riding a bicycle