Concept
Implicit memory
Overview
In psychology and neuroscience, 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.
The type of knowledge that is stored in implicit memory is called implicit knowledge, 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.
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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Now, language is such a contrivance. When that instrument is called to our aid, the difficulty is reduced to that of making our remembrance of the meaning of words accurate. This being secured, whatever passes through our minds may be remembered accurately, by putting it carefully into words, and committing the words either to writing or to memory.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Implicit memory is.
The faculty by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner, is called the _memory_, and the other the _imagination_. 'Tis evident, at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours, than any which are employed by the latter. When we remember any past event, the idea of it flows in…
David Hume, Philosophical Works, v. 1
States what Implicit memory is.
These raise problems of their own, which we shall reach in Lecture III. But the hardest problems are those that arise concerning ways of being "conscious." These ways, taken together, are called the "cognitive" elements in mind, and it is these that will occupy us most during the following lectures.
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Implicit memory is.
Related ideas
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Experience
- Empirical evidence
- Thought
- Inductive reasoning
- Consciousness
- Concept
- Explicit memory
- Recall (memory)
Place in the tradition
Part of Embodied cognition.