Mark's Text Terminal

“semantic memory: Memory for facts, such as the information that would be contained in a dictionary or encyclopedia with no connection to time or place. People do not remember when or where they learn this type of information.

Semantic memory registers and stores knowledge about the world in the broadest sense; it allows people to represent and mentally operate in situations, objects, and relations in the world that are not present in the senses. A person with an intact semantic memory system can think about things that are not here now.

Because semantic memory develops first in childhood, before episodic memory, children are able to learn facts before they can remember their own experiences.

The seat of semantic memory is believed to be located in the medial temporal lobe and diencephalic structures of the brain.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.