MEMORY STORAGE IN THE BRAIN is not like a videotape that we can wind or unwind at will. New learning, old information, and the links between them are constantly formed and destroyed in a dynamic process.
Implicit versus Explicit Memory
Memory can be classified into implicit and explicit categories. When you open your car door, turn on the ignition, and start driving, do you actually make a conscious effort to remember how to perform this sequence of actions? Of course not. The memory of how to drive a car is already hardwired and automatic, and you usually don’t need to pay any attention to it. The memory of how to drive a car required conscious ‘‘explicit” mental effort when you first took driving lessons, but it is now “implicit” or automatic. This “macro” memory with many hardwired components has room for flexibility— for example, when you drive a rental car or a friend’s automobile. It takes you a couple of moments to adjust to the new vehicle, to identify the positioning of the dashboard and driving controls, but soon you get the hang of it and you’re off without a care in the world. But your macro memory of how to drive a car cannot make huge shifts, as any automobile driver who tries to ride a motorbike for the first time can testify. So the nerve cells that store this information are not made of concrete or steel, but neither are they like a bowl of jelly— maybe more like a hard lump of Plasticine that changes its shape only with considerable force.
Skills and habits come under implicit memory. Classical conditioning and other types of memory, which also fall into this implicit category, are related to simple reflex reactions, for example, jumping away when touching a hot object, that we execute automatically in our everyday lives. But when you think of “memory, ” you probably think of something else altogether: discrete events, like recalling someone’s birthday or where you went on vacation a few years ago. This type of memory is
called “episodic” or “event-related” or “explicit” memory. You have to make a conscious effort to retrieve the explicit memory of a fact or event, unlike the implicit memory of knowing how to drive a car. In this book, I generally use the word memory as it is commonly understood: explicit memory of both short-term and long-term specific events.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
