Implicit memory

implicit memory
Is one of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is acquired and
used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviours.
One of its most common forms is procedural memory, which allows people to
perform certain tasks without conscious awareness of these previous
experiences; for example, remembering how to tie one's shoes or ride a
bicycle without consciously thinking about those activities.
• Implicit memory's counterpart is known as explicit memory or
declarative memory, which refers to the conscious, intentional
recollection of factual information, previous experiences and
concepts.[2]
• Evidence for implicit memory arises in priming, a process whereby
subjects are measured by how they have improved their
performance on tasks for which they have been subconsciously
prepared.
• Implicit memory also leads to the illusory truth effect, which
suggests that subjects are more likely to rate as true those
statements that they have already heard, regardless of their
truthfulness
 Procedural memory
• is a type of implicit memory (unconscious, long-term memory) which aids the
performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these
previous experiences.
• Procedural memory guides the processes we perform, and most frequently
resides below the level of conscious awareness. When needed, procedural
memories are automatically retrieved and utilized for execution of the
integrated procedures involved in both cognitive and motor skills, from tying
shoes, to reading, to flying an airplane. Procedural memories are accessed
and used without the need for conscious control or attention.
• Procedural memory is created through procedural learning, or repeating a
complex activity over and over again until all of the relevant neural systems
work together to automatically produce the activity. Implicit procedural
learning is essential for the development of any motor skill or cognitive activity.
 Anatomical structures
Striatum and basal ganglia
The dorsolateral striatum is associated with the acquisition of habits and
is the main neuronal cell nucleus linked to procedural memory.
Connecting excitatory afferent nerve fibers help in the regulation of
activity in the basal ganglia circuit. Essentially, two parallel information
processing pathways diverge from the striatum.
Both acting in opposition to each other in the control of movement, they
allow for association with other needed functional structures
One pathway is direct while the other is indirect and all pathways work
together to allow for a functional neural feedback loop
• Many looping circuits connect back at the striatum from other areas of the
brain; including those from the emotion-center linked limbic cortex, the
reward-center linked ventral striatum and other important motor regions
related to movement.
• The main looping circuit involved in the motor skill part of procedural memory
is usually called the cortex-basal ganglia-thalamus-cortex loop.
 Cerebellum
• The cerebellum is known to play a part in correcting movement and in fine-
tuning the motor agility found in procedural skills such as painting,
instrument playing and in sports such as golf.
• Damage to this area may prevent the proper relearning of motor skills and
through associated research it has more recently been linked to having a
role in automating the unconscious process used when learning a
procedural skill.
• New thoughts in the scientific community suggest that the cerebellar cortex
holds the holy grail of memory, what is known to researchers as "
the engram" or the biological place where memory lives.
• The initial memory trace is thought to form here between parallel fibers
and Purkinje cell and then travel outwards to other cerebellar nuclei for
consolidation
 Limbic system
• The limbic system is a group of unique brain areas that work together in many
interrelated processes involved in emotion, motivation, learning and memory.
• Current thinking indicates that the limbic system shares anatomy with a
component of the neostriatum already credited with the major task of
controlling procedural memory.
• Once thought to be functionally separate, this vital section of the brain found
on the striatum's back border has only recently been linked to memory and is
now being called the marginal division zone (MrD).
• A special membrane protein associated with the limbic system is said to
concentrate in related structures and to travel towards the basal nuclei. To put
things simply, the activation of brain regions that work together during
procedural memory can be followed because of this limbic system associated
membrane protein and its application in molecular and immunohistochemistry
research
Working memory
• Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold
information temporarily.
• Working memory is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-
making and behavior.
• Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term memory, but
some theorists consider the two forms of memory distinct, assuming that
working memory allows for the manipulation of stored information, whereas
short-term memory only refers to the short-term storage of information.
Working memory is a theoretical concept central to cognitive psychology,
neuropsychology, and neuroscience
• Working memory
• Is widely acknowledged as having limited capacity. An early quantification of
the capacity limit associated with short-term memory was the "magical
number seven“
• The information-processing capacity of young adults is around seven elements,
which he called "chunks", regardless of whether the elements are digits,
letters, words, or other units.
• For instance, span is lower for long than short words. In general, memory span
for verbal contents (digits, letters, words, etc.) depends on the phonological
complexity of the content (i.e., the number of phonemes, the number of
syllables) and on the lexical status of the contents (whether the contents are
words known to the person or not).
• Several other factors affect a person's measured span, and therefore it is
difficult to pin down the capacity of short-term or working memory to a
number of chunks.
 Development of working memory
• The capacity of working memory increases gradually over childhood and
declines gradually in old age.

Childhood
Measures of performance on tests of working memory increase
continuously between early childhood and adolescence

Agi
Working memory is among the cognitive functions most sensitive to decline in
old age
 Sensory memory
Sensory memory holds information, derived from the senses, less than one
second after an item is perceived.
The ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split
second of observation, or memorization, is the example of sensory memory.
It is out of cognitive control and is an automatic response. With very short
presentations, participants often report that they seem to "see" more than they
can actually report.
• Three types of sensory memories exist.

Iconic memory is a fast decaying store of visual information, a type of sensory

memory that briefly stores an image that has been perceived for a small
duration.
 Echoic memory is a fast decaying store of auditory information, also a
sensory memory that briefly stores sounds that have been perceived for short
durations.
 Haptic memory is a type of sensory memory that represents a database for
touch stimuli.
 Short-term memory
• Short-term memory is also known as working memory. Short-term memory
allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Its
capacity, however, is very limited

• For example, in recalling a ten-digit telephone number, a person could chunk

the digits into three groups: first, the area code (such as 123), then a three-digit
chunk (456), and, last, a four-digit chunk (7890).
• This method of remembering telephone numbers is far more effective than
attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is because we are able to
chunk the information into meaningful groups of numbers.
• This is reflected in some countries' tendencies to display telephone numbers as
several chunks of two to four numbers.
 Long-term memory

• The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally has a strictly
limited capacity and duration, which means that information is not retained
indefinitely.
• By contrast, long-term memory can store much larger quantities of information
for potentially unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life span). Its capacity is
immeasurable.
• For example, given a random seven-digit number, one may remember it for
only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in short-term
memory. On the other hand, one can remember telephone numbers for many
years through repetition; this information is said to be stored in long-term
memory.
• While short-term memory encodes information acoustically, long-term
memory encodes it semantically.
• Baddeley (1966) discovered that, after 20 minutes, test subjects had the most
difficulty recalling a collection of words that had similar meanings (e.g. big,
large, great, huge) long-term.
• Another part of long-term memory is episodic memory, "which attempts to
capture information such as 'what', 'when' and 'where’”.
• With episodic memory, individuals are able to recall specific events such as
birthday parties and weddings.
• Short-term memory is supported by transient patterns of neuronal
communication, dependent on regions of the frontal lobe (especially
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and the parietal lobe.
• Long-term memory, on the other hand, is maintained by more stable and
permanent changes in neural connections widely spread throughout the brain.
The hippocampus is essential (for learning new information) to the consolidation
of information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem
to store information itself.
• It was thought that without the hippocampus new memories were unable to
be stored into long-term memory and that there would be a very short
attention span, after what was thought to be the full removal of both his
hippocampi.
• More recent examination of his brain, post-mortem, shows that the
hippocampus was more intact than first thought, throwing theories drawn
from the initial data into question. The hippocampus may be involved in
changing neural connections for a period of three months or more after the
initial learning.

• Research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be

maintained by DNA methylation, and the 'prion' gene