Monday, March 12, 2012
Muscle Memory
Ever find that you can't remember a telephone number when you just try to say it, but if you have a phone in front of you, you suddenly can? Or, if you've had some code or pin number, that you could always type, but not say? That, is the wonders of muscle memory. That, is also what I just blogged about on my other blog http://classicalmusicandme.blogspot.com/. You rely on muscle memory a lot more than you realize. For example, when you're walking you use muscle memory. This is the reason you don't fall every few steps like you did as a toddler. I believe this is also the reason why once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget. Unless of course you suffer some sort of brain damage or develop a brain disease like Alzheimer's.
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What's amazing is that even those who suffer from memory loss (e.g. amnesia) still retain "procedural memory"--memory for skills, which encompasses muscle memory. The interesting thing is that since they don't remember factual/knowledge-based memory (called "semantic memory") they won't be able to tell you they know how to do it! So if you asked an amnesic who knew how to ride a bike, "Can you ride a bike?", he/she'd say "no". But then she might just hop on the bike and ride away! Amnesics will be able to play piano, or conduct if they knew how to earlier. There's a famous case of a conductor named Clive Wearing who had a memory span of only a few seconds, but he remembered two things: music and love for his wife (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing). Oliver Sacks wrote about his case in Musicophilia and worked with him, and he pops up not infrequently in psychology discussions. I find his case beautiful, despite the sadness of it all.
ReplyDeleteWasn't that in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat?" also by Oliver Sacks. Oh well. Oliver Sacks is an amazing writer and neurologist. I would recommend his books to everyone. You brought up a good point though. How does a person with amnesia or some other memory problem forget everything but some random thing? Or maybe not random, because it was things that were a pretty big part of his life, though I don't know if I'd put love in the procedural memory category.
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