PBS Nova on muscle memory

[Moppy]

There was an episode of Nova on last night about memory, and they did an interesting experiment that I think applies to golfers. There was a man who had had his hippocampus surgically removed to prevent seizures, and they found out that you needed this area of the brain to form permanent memories. So this guy stopped having seizures, but couldn't make any new memories.

They set the guy to a task that required a little learning, they had him trace outlines with a pencil, but he couldn't look directly at his hands, just see them in a mirror. Normal people can learn this skill after a little while. Anyway, they had him do it, and the first time he was not very good, but the next day they would try it again, and he would say he had never done it before, but each day he got a little better at it. Some unconscious part of his brain was learning the task even though he had no conscious memory of it. 

So I guess "muscle memory" is a thing separate from regular memory, even if it doesn't exactly reside in the muscles. 

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, Moppy said:

There was an episode of Nova on last night about memory, and they did an interesting experiment that I think applies to golfers. There was a man who had had his hippocampus surgically removed to prevent seizures, and they found out that you needed this area of the brain to form permanent memories. So this guy stopped having seizures, but couldn't make any new memories.

They set the guy to a task that required a little learning, they had him trace outlines with a pencil, but he couldn't look directly at his hands, just see them in a mirror. Normal people can learn this skill after a little while. Anyway, they had him do it, and the first time he was not very good, but the next day they would try it again, and he would say he had never done it before, but each day he got a little better at it. Some unconscious part of his brain was learning the task even though he had no conscious memory of it. 

So I guess "muscle memory" is a thing separate from regular memory, even if it doesn't exactly reside in the muscles. 

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[nevets88]

This is probably the episode:

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365663085/