Implicit+&+Explicit+Memory

Long Term Memory consists of two seperate but interacting sub-systems explicit and implicit memory. In everyday life explicit and implicit memories guide our lives with the environment and influence our understanding.
 * __Implicit & Explicit Memory__**

//Implicit Memory:// Implicit memories influence our behaviour without requiring conscious recollection of prior learning. Commonly procedural types of memories about how to do things like riding a bike or using a toaster, but can also include a phenomenon called priming. Behaviour without requiring conscious effort to retrieve memories like
 * Riding a bike
 * Using a toaster
 * When you stand up
 * Pick up a telephone
 * When you read and do not need to search memory for the definition of each word

//Priming:// //Priming is where prior exposure to a stimulus, even when you are unable to remember it or are unaware// //of the need to remember it, can improve retrieval of that stimulus or related stimuli at another time.// For example, when a person reads a list of words including the word '//table'//, and is later asked to complete a word starting with //tab//, the probability that subject answers //table// is higher than for non-primed people.

//Explicit Memory:// Explicit memory involves a deliberate and concious attempt to retrieve previously stored information. Consequently, is memory with awareness. Most commonly used tests of explicit memory are recall and recognition. Information needing to be conciously retrieved is when explicit memory is examined
 * Recollect a phone number
 * Name of someone you were just introduced to
 * what you ate for lunch 3 days ago
 * concious act trying to do somehing

//Further Research:// People shown an incomplete sketch and unable to identify it are shown more of the sketch until they recognize the picture. Later they will identify the sketch at an earlier stage than was possible for them the first time (Kolb & Whishaw: //Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology// (2003), page 453-454, 457). To test the effect of priming on an accessible memory, Adler et al. (2000) gave 3 month olds an initial 3 minutereactivation treatment either immediately (o days) or 3 days after training – when the original memory was still relatively accessible – and asked how it affected the infants’ subsequent retention. Although 3 month olds can remember an explicit memory for 5 but not 6 days after training is over (Hayne 1990), infants who were primed for 3 min immediately after training exhibited significant retention 6 but not 7 days later; and infants who were primed 3 days after training exhibited significant retention 7 but not 9 days after training. Thus, priming an accessible memory provided a slight memory boost that increased with the delay between training and priming. Priming when the original memory was active, however, did not boost retention nearly as long as priming when it was not (eg., Hayne1990; Hildreth & Rovee-Collier 1999b)

 The development of a full-blown emotional response can be understood as the result of two independent processes (LeDoux, 1996, 2000). The core of the emotional system involves a mechanism for computing the affective significance of stimuli (cf. Zajonc, 1984). This mechanism operates automatically, outside of conscious awareness, and depends on implicit memory. Studies have found that autonomic responses can be directly activated through this mechanism and these responses are part of the precursors for the conscious emotional experience.