ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with semantic memory. The term semantic memory is used in reference to the nonepisodic information. The chapter discusses a distinction between three types of semantic memory models: network models, set-theoretic models, and feature-comparison models. In 1969, Allan Collins and Ross Quillian wrote a paper entitled “Retrieval time from semantic memory.” In this paper, Collins and Quillian suggest that the items stored in semantic memory are connected by links in a huge network. Whereas network models have emphasized the netlike hierarchical structure of semantic memory, a different class of models, called set-theoretic models, has treated memory as if it consists of sets of elements. Most laboratory experiments of human memory have dealt with episodic memory phenomena; many fewer have dealt with semantic memory phenomena. Important problem for students of memory is to determine the interdependence between episodic and semantic memory.
