Glossary
Procedural Memory
What is Procedural Memory?
Procedural memory supports learned skills and habits, expressed through performance without requiring conscious recollection of the learning episodes. It includes perceptual and motor learning and is not limited to movements. Performing a skill can still require attention, particularly while learning or adapting it.
Procedural memory examples
Riding a familiar bicycle or performing a practiced musical passage illustrates memory expressed through skill. Describing the steps is a different task from carrying them out.
Procedural memory and the brain
The memory-systems review by Squire (2004) describes the neostriatum, part of the basal ganglia, as important for gradual, feedback-guided habit learning. Different learning tasks depend on different systems, so procedural memory cannot be assigned to one storage site.
Motor learning also involves circuits linking the cortex with the cerebellum and striatum. Doyon and Benali’s review distinguishes learning a movement sequence from adapting movements to changed conditions, with different contributions across practice and consolidation. Cerebellar contributions are particularly relevant to motor adaptation. Motor-cortical changes also occur as practiced sequences become established.
For example, learning a new sequence of finger movements is a different demand from adjusting a familiar movement to a shifted visual display. “Procedural memory” groups these forms of learned performance without implying that the same neural process supports each task at every stage.
How is procedural memory measured?
Researchers examine changes in speed, accuracy, or skill across practice and retention intervals. Tasks can include mirror tracing or learning a sequence of button presses. Explicit strategies can also contribute to performance, so improvement is not automatically a pure measure of procedural memory.
Procedural versus declarative memory
Declarative memory concerns facts and events that can be consciously recalled. Procedural memory is expressed in learned performance. Studies of people with amnesia, including H.M., showed that some skills could improve despite severe difficulty remembering practice episodes. This helped establish that memory is not one undifferentiated ability.
Procedural memory in training and rehabilitation
Skill-learning research can inform training and rehabilitation. Transfer to a new task or setting must be tested, and preserved learning in one task does not establish that a particular rehabilitation program will work.