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Procedural memory, (also known as implicit memory and nondeclarative memory), is the long-term memory of skills and procedures, or "how to" knowledge.

As compared with declarative memory, it is governed by different mechanisms and different brain circuits. Procedural memory is often not easily verbalized, and can be used without conscious thought. (In contrast, declarative memory can generally be put into words.)

Examples of procedural learning are: learning to ride a bike, learning to touch type, learning to play a musical instrument or learning to swim. These skills are often learnt without conscious awareness or understanding of what is being learnt. Once learnt they are perfomed to some degree automatically with integrated smooth performance.

Such learning is usually slow and requires many repetitions for the memory to become secure.

Procedural memory can reflect simple stimulus-response pairing but usually involves associations of sequential stimuli that require the ongoing storage of information about predictive relationships between events so that this facilitates the smooth performance of the skill under fluctuating conditions. Think about riding a bike over rough ground on a windy day. The memory for the sequence of bike riding movementss has to be integrated with predictions from memory about the ground and the environment.

Procedural memory can be very durable. Once you have learnt to ride a bike do you forget?

Studies of people with certain brain injuries (such as damage to the hippocampus) suggest that procedural memory and episodic memory use different parts of the brain, and can work independently. For example, some patients are repeatedly trained in a task and remember previous training, but do not improve in a task (functioning declarative memory, damaged procedural memory). Other patients put through the same training can't recall having been through the experiment, but their performance in the task improves over time (functioning procedural memory, damaged declarative memory).

Main article: Neurobiology of procedural memory

Contents 1 See also 2 References & Bibliography 3 Key texts 3.1 Books 3.2 Papers 4 Additional material 4.1 Books 4.2 Papers 5 External links

[edit] See also

• Long-term memory

[edit] References & Bibliography

[edit] Key texts

[edit] Books

[edit] Papers

[edit] Additional material

[edit] Books

[edit] Papers

• Cavaco S., et. al. (2004). The scope of preserved procedural memory in amnesia. Brain, Vol. 127, No. 8, 1853-1867. Full text

[edit] External links

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Memory
Types of memory
Auditory memory | Autobiographical memory | Collective memory | Early memories | Echoic Memory | Eidetic memory | Episodic memory | Explicit memory  |Exosomatic memory | False memory |Flashbulb memory | Iconic memory |Institutional memory | Long term memory | Procedural memory | Prospective memory |Repressed memory |Retrospective memory | Semantic memory |Sensory memory | Short term memory |Spatial memory | State-dependent memory | Verbal memory  | Visual memory  | Tonal memory | | Working memory  |
Aspects of memory
Childhood amnesia | Cryptomnesia |Cued recall | Eye-witness testimony | Memory and emotion | Forgetting |Forgetting curve | Free recall |Levels-of-processing effect |Memory consolidation |Memory decay | Memory distrust syndrome |Memory inhibition | Memory and smell | Memory loss | Memory optimization | Memory trace | Mnemonic | Memory biases  | Tip of the tongue |Lethologica | Priming | Proactive interference | Prompting | Recency effect | Reminiscence | Retroactive interference | Source amnesia |
Memory theory
Memory encoding | Baddeley | Memory-prediction framework | Memory consolidation | Forgetting | Recall | Recognition | Atkinson-Shiffrin | Interference theory | Memory-prediction framework | Dual-coding theory |Decay theory |
Mnemonics
Method of loci | Mnemonic room system | Mnemonic dominic system | Mnemonic link system |Mnemonic major system | Mnemonic peg system | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Neuroanatomy of memory
Amygdala | Hippocampus | prefrontal cortex  | Neurobiology of working memory | Neurophysiology of memory | Rhinal cortex | [[]] |[[]] |
Neurochemistry of memory
Glutamatergic system  | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Memory in clinical settings
Alcohol amnestic disorder | Amnesia | Memory disorders | False memory | Memory and aging | Traumatic memory | | Dissociative fugue |Hyperthymesia |Repressed memory |
Assessment of memory
Benton | MERMER | Rivermead | TOMM |Wechsler | MAS |Rey-15 | PDRT | CAMPROMPT | WMT |
Treating memory problems
CBT | Psychotherapy |EMDR |Recovered memory therapy |Reminiscence therapy |Memory clinic | Rewind technique |
Prominant workers in memory|-
Baddeley | Broadbent |Ebbinghaus  | Kandel |McGaugh | Schacter  | Treisman | Tulving  |
Philosophy and historical views of memory
Aristotle | [[]] |[[]] |[[]] |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |
Miscellaneous
Journals | Learning, Memory, and Cognition |Journal of Memory and Language |Memory |Memory and Cognition | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |

This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Procedural memory. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.