Semantic memory refers to basic world data that people have accumulated all through their lives. This normal information (word meanings, ideas, information, and ideas) is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. New ideas are discovered by applying data realized from issues up to now. Semantic memory is distinct from episodic memory-the memory of experiences and particular occasions that happen in a single's life that may be recreated at any given point. For example, semantic memory would possibly include details about what a cat is, whereas episodic memory may include a specific memory of stroking a specific cat. Semantic memory and episodic Memory Wave are each kinds of specific memory (or declarative memory), or memory of facts or events that may be consciously recalled and "declared". The counterpart to declarative or express Memory Wave is implicit memory (also called nondeclarative memory). The concept of semantic memory was first introduced following a convention in 1972 between Endel Tulving and W. Donaldson on the role of group in human memory.

Tulving constructed a proposal to tell apart between episodic memory and what he termed semantic memory. He was mainly influenced by the concepts of Reiff and Scheers, who in 1959 made the distinction between two main forms of memory. One type was titled remembrances, and the other memoria. The remembrance idea dealt with recollections that contained experiences of an autobiographic index, whereas the memoria concept handled memories that didn't reference experiences having an autobiographic index. Semantic memory reflects the data of the world, and the time period general knowledge is commonly used. It holds generic information that is greater than doubtless acquired across varied contexts and is used across totally different conditions. In keeping with Madigan in his book titled Memory, semantic memory is the sum of all knowledge one has obtained-vocabulary, understanding of math, or MemoryWave Guide all the details one knows. In his book titled Episodic and Semantic Memory, Tulving adopted the term semantic from linguists to seek advice from a system of memory for "phrases and verbal symbols, their meanings and referents, the relations between them, and the foundations, formulation, or algorithms for influencing them".

The usage of semantic memory differs from episodic memory: semantic memory refers to general details and meanings one shares with others, while episodic memory refers to distinctive and concrete private experiences. Tulving's proposal of this distinction was extensively accepted, primarily as a result of it allowed the separate conceptualization of world knowledge. 3. their utility to the real world as nicely because the memory laboratory. In 2022, researchers Felipe De Brigard, Sharda Umanath, and Muireann Irish argued that Tulving conceptualized semantic memory to be totally different from episodic memory in that "episodic reminiscences were seen as supported via spatiotemporal relations whereas data in semantic memory was mediated through conceptual, meaning-based associations". In the theory of grounded cognition, the that means of a specific word is grounded within the sensorimotor techniques. For instance, when one thinks of a pear, knowledge of grasping, chewing, sights, sounds, and MemoryWave Guide tastes used to encode episodic experiences of a pear are recalled by way of sensorimotor simulation.

A grounded simulation approach refers to context-specific re-activations that combine the essential options of episodic experience into a current depiction. Such analysis has challenged beforehand utilized amodal views. The mind encodes multiple inputs akin to words and pictures to combine and create a larger conceptual idea by using amodal views (also called amodal perception). As a substitute of being representations in modality-specific programs, semantic memory representations had beforehand been seen as redescriptions of modality-particular states. Some accounts of class-specific semantic deficits which are amodal stay despite the fact that researchers are starting to seek out help for theories during which data is tied to modality-particular brain areas. The idea that semantic representations are grounded across modality-specific mind areas can be supported by episodic and semantic memory appearing to operate in numerous yet mutually dependent ways. The distinction between semantic and episodic memory has develop into part of the broader scientific discourse. For example, researchers speculate that semantic memory captures the stable elements of our character whereas episodes of illness could have a extra episodic nature.