Procedural memory

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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, but can be used without consciously thinking about it; procedural memory can reflect simple stimulus-response pairing or more extensive patterns learned over time. (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. Procedural memory can be very durable.

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).

Damage to the cerebellum and the basal ganglia seems to particularly affect procedural learning.

See also

• Long-term memory