Information Processing, Human Error and the Learning Process — Page 160, Lesson 251

I want to walk you through the different types of long-term memory and how they work, because this is central to understanding how pilots store and retrieve the vast amount of knowledge they need. Let's start with semantic memory. This is the part of your long-term memory that stores general knowledge about the world — facts, concepts, and meanings. It holds the answers to questions like: Are fish minerals? Do birds fly? Do cars have legs? The idea is that semantic memory organises concepts in a dense network of associations, so one idea connects to many others. Language itself is stored here. A key point: it's generally thought that once information enters semantic memory, it is never truly lost. It's far more accurate than episodic memory. When you can't remember a word, it's not because the word has vanished from the store — it's because you're having trouble finding where it's stored. The information is still there; the retrieval path is just blocked. Now, episodic memory is different. This stores memories of events or 'episodes' from your life — a particular flight you flew, a specific meeting you attended, or an incident you experienced. It's personal and time-stamped. There's a debate among experts about whether long-term memory has only those two components. Most agree it consists of just semantic and episodic memory. However, some include motor programmes as a third constituent of long-term memory. Motor programmes are the stored patterns for skilled physical actions — things like the muscle memory for operating controls or flying an approach. It appears that EASA agrees with the view that includes motor programmes, so in these notes, procedural memory is treated as part of long-term memory. Now, let's look at a factor that affects long-term memory, specifically episodic memory: expectation. One of the features of episodic memory is that the information does not stay static. It is heavily influenced by our expectation of what should have happened. This tendency to remember what should have happened, rather than the actual series of events, causes real problems for investigators of accidents or even police investigations. For example, an experienced pilot witnessing an aviation accident will have a much stronger expectation of a likely set of events than a lay observer, and his recollection will be shaped by that expectation. That's a critical point for you as a future professional — your own expertise can actually distort your memory of an event if you're not careful.