Different areas of brain involved in STM and LTM
Case study on HM, Scoville and Milner
HM had brain damage caused by operation removing hippocampus from both sides of brain to reduce his severe epilepsy
his personality and intellect remained the same, but couldn't form new long term memories, while still able to form short term memories (but had no recolection of after minutes) - couldn't transfer memories to LTM
he would read the same magazine over and over, after moving house it took him 6 years to memorise the route to his house, and experienced the grief of his mother dying over and over again
Supported by case study: as his ability to create short term memories remained intact, but couldn't transfer (using pathway located in the hippocampus) memory from STM to LTM (disconected link) - showing they are seperate and function differently in different parts of the brain, and memories are transfered into LTM using elaborative rehursal