semantic-memory

Semantic memory is the human-made cognitive category for storing general knowledge, facts, concepts, and meanings independent of personal experience or episodic recall. It is a construct of cognitive psychology that classifies memory types, enabling researchers and clinicians to study how factual knowledge is organized, acquired, and retrieved in the brain. Semantic memory differs from episodic memory by encoding world knowledge (e.g., 'Paris is the capital of France') rather than personal events. Its persistence mechanism is language and teaching — the category is maintained through psychological models, clinical assessment, and neuroscience research that map its structure and failures (e.g., semantic dementia). [formal: memoria semantica | substrate: mind | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]