Long-term memory
Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to sensory memory, the initial stage, and short-term or working memory, the second stage, which persists for about 18 to 30 seconds. LTM is grouped into two categories known as explicit memory (declarative memory) and implicit memory (non-declarative memory). Explicit memory is broken down into episodic and semantic memory, while implicit memory includes procedural memory and emotional conditioning.
Contradictory evidence[edit]
Some studies have yielded results that contradict the dual-store memory model. Studies showed that in spite of using distractors, there was still both a recency effect for a list of items[63] and a contiguity effect.[64]
Another study revealed that how long an item spends in short-term memory is not the key determinant in its strength in long-term memory. Instead, whether the participant actively tries to remember the item while elaborating on its meaning determines the strength of its store in LTM.[65]
Single-store memory model[edit]
An alternative theory is that there is only one memory store with associations among items and their contexts. In this model, the context serves as a cue for retrieval, and the recency effect is greatly caused by the factor of context. Immediate and delayed free recall will have the same recency effect because the relative similarity of the contexts still exists. Also, the contiguity effect still occurs because contiguity also exists between similar contexts.[66]