Talk:Procedural memory

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it seems as if there is quite some congruence between this wikipedia-article and the text in this link http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/P/Pr/Procedural_memory.htm

=Language recall= So if I was learning a 2nd language and wanted to recall what I learned, I would need a strong Procedural memory correct? How would one improve his procedural memory?
 * (I added a title to this question). It would be semantic memory that you're asking about, not procedural memory, I believe. As for improving, hard to say. My guess: learn. The more you learn, the easier it is to learn more, I think it's fair to say. There are also memory strategies one can learn, mnemonic devices like the method of loci that can help you improve recall by taking advantage of the way the brain works (i.e. associatively). digfarenough (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If recall what he learned would refer to how to make sounds than it would be procedural memory. For instance how to make the sound (TH) at first requires attention, but then may become proceduralized. accessing how to make the sound would be retrieval from procedural memory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.99.175.226 (talk) 00:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

=Muscle memory merge= Just thought I'd throw in my support of the vote to merge muscle memory into this article. digfarenough (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There are several types of procedural memory, and muscle memory is only one of them. Learning stimulus/response associations is another form of procedural memory that is not motor-based.  Therefore I do not think it is scientifically sound to merge it with muscle memory, since that is only one type of procedural memory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lathomas (talk • contribs)
 * (I assume you didn't mean to start a new section with the title "=" so I moved your response up and indented it: I apologize if that isn't what was intended). I think the better solution would be to have muscle memory redirect here and simply include "muscle memory" as a subtype of procedural memory on this page. My personal feeling is that stimulus-response learning is striatal and that so-called "muscle memory" is the same, so that ultimately it is safe to consider them the same thing (but perhaps I'm just restating that they are both procedural). I am somewhat biased by the fact that I think the muscle memory page is in very poor shape and that merging here would provide a good chance to cut out a lot of it and just keep the good parts. Out of curiosity, can you think of a good example of stimulus-response learning that you could consider clearly distinct from "muscle memory"? I can think of a few examples, but they aren't very good so maybe I'm missing something obvious. digfarenough (talk) 01:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No no no! Terrible idea for a merge! Muscle memory has nothing to do with procedural memory, or memory at all for that matter, it is a completely discreet faculty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.157.1.184 (talk • contribs)
 * Could you give an example of something that is muscle memory and not procedural memory? digfarenough (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't make the merger. The subjects lend themselves to a search much better having two different titles. I would never have thought to do a search on muscle memory. As a suggestion, you could, rather, simply add a "muscle memory" link to the "See also*" at the bottom of the page. 142.46.196.22 19:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it is appropriate to mix both memories....

I think it's a bad idea to merge the two. Muscle memory is a physiological response to a stimulus. Procedural memory on the other hand, while often unconscious, is still controlled by information stored in long term memory. 123.243.241.155 17:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Memory is physiological. Muscles don't have the sort of memory implied by "muscle memory"--they do not remember. As far as I'm aware, muscle memory is strictly contained in procedural memory. I asked for an example to the contrary above, but no one ever posted one. Even if you can't provide a specific example, can you provide a reputable source that claims the two are distinct? digfarenough (talk) 01:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I have never heard of "muscle memory" but procedural memory is a very basic concept in cognitive psychology that every psychology undergraduate student knows. I do not believe that these two articles should be combined. Procedural memory is an important psychological concept. Look up any undergraduate psych textbook (you won't see 'muscle memory' mentioned).

As seen above there are people who've heard of one and not the other. For that reason alone I would think that keeping them separate BUT with appropriate cross links would serve the community better. My still limited understanding of the processes suggest that persons looking at "muscle memory" would tend to be interested from the view point of sports whereas "procedural memory" seems to be more oriented toward cognitive issues such as language.

= Tiger Woods material =

This should go to an entirely different subject. It has little to do with procedural memory. Otherwise we would need to bring Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Venus Williams, and many more. Procedular memory is a physiology subject. The section I remove might go to Tiger Woods, to Golf, to Learning Golf, or even "procedural memory in Golf".

Here it goes ...

To acquire an appreciation for the application of procedural memory with regard to athletic performance, Yogi Berra had once posed the rhetorical question:
 * "How can you think and hit at the same time?" Yogi Berra


 * 1) Judge the line of the ball
 * 2) Judge the grain of the turf
 * 3) Judge the distance and angle to the hole
 * 4) Image the ball going into the hole
 * 5) Position the ball somewhere between the center of your feet. You should be able to look straight down on top of the ball
 * 6) Align shoulders, hips, knees, and feet parallel and to the left of the target (e.g., image railroad tracks from the ball to the cup—feet outside the tracks, the ball in the middle)
 * 7) Grip—thumbs should be pointed straight down, palms facing each other, a light grip
 * 8) Posture—stand tall enough so that if you were to practice putting for 30 minutes you would not experience a stiff or sore back
 * 9) Arms—should hang naturally and be relaxed
 * 10) Hands—should be relative to ball position. Hands should be slightly in front of the ball
 * 11) Head position—eyes should be positioned directly over the ball
 * 12) Weight—distribute weight evenly, about 50-50, or with a little more weight on the left foot
 * 13) Backswing—swing the club straight back. The distance back that the club goes must equal the through stroke distance
 * 14) Stroke—the club must accelerate through the ball. Finish with the "face" of the club head pointing directly at the target
 * 15) Length of the stroke—it is better to err to a shorter more compact stroke rather than a longer stroke
 * 16) Stroke direction—straight back and straight through
 * 17) Stroke rhythm—not too fast and not too slow
 * 18) Keep head and lower body stationary throughout stroke and swing with the arms
 * 19) Wrists—should not break during the stroke
 * 20) Arms and shoulders—should do most of the work
 * 21) Head/trunk/hips/legs—should remain still during the stroke
 * 22) Watch the ball go into the hole  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.89.200.51 (talk) 05:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

= Merge from Automaticity? =

Merge Seems like a no-brainer.  Sparkie82 ( t • c ) 16:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Does not automaticity involve unconscious thinking, that is processing of new information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.246.19.211 (talk) 21:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

193.197.171.98 --139.133.28.2 (talk) 12:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)(talk) 08:17, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that these articles can be merged, with Automaticity being the title, since procedural memory generally deals with automatic behavior. Lord Arador (talk) 03:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - The two lemmas refer to rather distinct phenomena.
 * I am opposed to this, it is true that some procedural processes could be considered automatic, e.g. motor sequences for bike riding. However there are other processes, characterised as automatic, that do not come under the name of procedural, such as stereotype activation and other social cognitive processes. Automaticity is a subject in its own right - and has been a common theme in psychology since its inception, (William James' 1890 unconscious mind).--Airvine1991 (talk) 12:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I am opposed to this merger. While it is true that tasks using procedural memory are usually automatic, not all automatic tasks involve procedural memory. For example, giving a well-rehearsed speech might be automatic but does not involve motor skills/procedural memory. Another thing to consider is that, despite the overlap between the two concepts, they are usually learned about in different contexts. In psychology courses, automaticity tends to be used as a general term in the context of cognitive shortcuts; procedural memory is typically learned about alongside declarative memory within the subject of memory storage. Therefore, the two articles should be kept separate so that psychology students at different places in their studies are able to find the term that is more relevant to what they are doing in class. Sbernt13 (talk) 04:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

=Major revert needed?= I think this article might be improved by reverting it to a much older version because of insidious vandalism which occurred between circa January 2009 and March 2010. Much of the damaging content was introduces at the revision at []. The user who made that edit had several warnings on his user page around that time. His first edit to the article was to blank the page [].

An example of some of the damaging content which remains to this day:


 * Skill acquisition is achieved when an observed behaviour has changed due to experience or practice. This is known as learning and is not directly observable.

Because the vandalism is so difficult to detect, I think a revert to some earlier version might significantly improve the article without having to plod through it as it is.  Sparkie82 ( t • c ) 16:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I can speak to this. The update was part of a University project to update stub-level wikipedia pages in the field of Memory. Students were encouraged to use the existing page if there was useful information, though I believe many of them did not. There was also much confusion on image rights and having a shared account, which lead to several warnings which were (hopefully) all cleared up. So while there is no doubt this article could be improved, it was not an act of vandalism. 68.67.58.114 (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Please do not combine
As a first year psychology student, procedural memory in and of itself was a concept I needed to research due to the fallibility of my instructor. He required knowledge of procedural memory for our final, but did not cover it in class & it was not in our textbook. If the articles had been merged I would not have found what I needed. Please keep them separate for future generations to find. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.0.45.201 (talk) 00:11, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Do not merge the two!
Automaticity should be updated, not merged with "Procedural memory", as the element of it being directly related to procedural memory is "Post-conscious automaticity", but there is another side to automaticity that has emerged in psychology, i.e. Pre-conscious automaticity, which is not preceded by conscious/intentional thought. (Bargh, Schwader, Hailey, Dyer, & Boothby, 2012). Thus, merging the two would just necessarily give birth to a second article and it would just add to the confusion, having to differentiate the two concepts of pre- and postconscious automaticity while they're defined in two different articles.

Bargh, J. A., Schwader, K. L., Hailey, S. E., Dyer, R. L., & Boothby, E. J. (2012). Automaticity in social-cognitive processes. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(12), 593-605. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.203.30.24 (talk) 11:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

= Dubious =

Some ridiculous comments about how "we have all seen" professional athletes "perform like beginners" or similar nonsense that looks like it was lifted from a magazine article, I flagged it. Anonywiki (talk) 21:37, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

"McDougall"
"McDougall" is referenced but not cited. Presumably it is William McDougall (psychologist), but this is not linked. 2606:A000:1126:28D:49B1:F7CF:DED4:6F11 (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Learning Musical Instruments
Not an important topic? FangoFuficius (talk) 06:55, 5 May 2023 (UTC)