ABSTRACT
A. The Domain of Semantic Memory The phrase semantic memory has been used to denote three views about meaning and memory that vary in how inclusive they are. At the broadest level, semantic memory is assumed to be our store for meaningful material, be it our permanent knowledge of the meanings of words or our transient memory of a particular sentence that was presented to us in a laboratory experiment. Under this definition, theories of semantic memory include, among others, the large-scale memory models developed by Anderson and Bower (1973), Kintsch (1974), and Norman and Rumelhart (1975). A second definition restricts the domain of semantic memory to a subset of the above. This is Tulving's (1972) distinction between semantic and episodic memory, where the former refers to our permanent knowledge about the language and basic facts of the world, while the latter essentially includes everything else. Under Tulving's definition, semantic memory would contain the meaning of cat as well as the fact that Columbus is commonly credited with the discovery of America, but not a particular sentence that was just presented to us in a psychological experiment. The third definition, that semantic memory contains only knowledge about the language, specifically, the meanings of words and rules for operating them, is the most restrictive of all.
