ABSTRACT
Semantic memory is usually thought to be organised in terms of networks, categories, schemas, scripts, or general knowledge systems. Taking this distinction as basic, theorists often equate autobiographical memory with episodic memory. Learning and memory are trade-offs with specific genetic programmes for behaviour. The functional memory system directs action in the present and predicts future outcomes. That is to say, memory has value for the present and future because it predicts on the basis of past probabilities. The type of memory system just described would explain both short-term episodic memories and long-lasting generic memory. Semantic memory is usually thought to be organised in terms of networks, categories, schemas, scripts, or general knowledge systems. Some psychologists have suggested that childhood amnesia is readily explainable in terms of general memory theory, that is, that forgetting occurs over time, and the longest time since an event should lead to the greatest forgetting.
