Implicit Memory
Perhaps the best known of the various types of implicit memory is procedural memory, which enables people to acquire motor skills and gradually improve them.
Procedural memory operates unconscious to us, because it is composed of automatic sensory-motor behaviors that are so deeply embedded, we are no longer aware of them.
People with profound amnesia often retain their procedural memory, which argues for separate neural pathways.
Implicit memories are formed beyond our awareness. Studies show that people recognize the string of letters forming the word ‘doctor’ faster if they saw the word ‘nurse’ first, than seeing an irrelevant or new word, like north, or number.
Although implicit memory is latent, it does influence our behavior. All advertising is based on this. Because we no longer see all the advertising around us, we think we don’t remember them. However, research has shown that when we go into a store and have to choose among products with similar characteristics, we tend to buy the one that was the subject of an advertising campaign, we cannot recall.
The same principle would also explain what is happening when you have a brilliant idea that seems to have sprung straight out of your own imagination. Later, you realize that you actually read about it, surfing the I-net.
Our conditioned reflexes and emotional responses are also stored in our Implicit memory. The associative learning that forms its basis is an ancient process that takes place without the intervention of the conscious mind.
