Procedural memory: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:12, 18 August 2023

Revision as of 18:01, 25 October 2023

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=== Practice and the power law of learning ===

[[Practice (learning method)|Practice]] can be an effective way to learn new skills if knowledge of the result, more commonly known as [[Corrective feedback|feedback]], is involved.<ref>{{Cite book|title=How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition|last=Council|first=National Research|date=23 August 1999|isbn=9780309070362|pages=177|language=en|doi=10.17226/9853}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Learning and memory : from brain to behavior|last1=Eduardo.|first1=Mercado|last2=E.|first2=Myers, Catherine|date=1 January 2014|publisher=Worth Publishers|isbn=9781429240147|pages=311|oclc=900627172}}</ref> There is an observed phenomenon known as the [[Power law of practice|power law of learning]], which predicts the rate of skill acquisition over practice time. The power law of learning says that learning occurs at the fastest rate in the beginning then drastically tapers off. The rate at which practice loses its ability to sharpen execution is independent from the skill being practiced and the type of animal learning the skill. For example, participants in a reading speed study made the greatest leap in the first days of the experiment, while additional days of practice saw only slight improvement.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Learning and memory : from brain to behavior|last1=Eduardo.|first1=Mercado|last2=E.|first2=Myers, Catherine|year=2014|isbn=9781429240147|pages=311–312|publisher=Worth Publishers |oclc=961181739}}</ref>

The power law of learning can be overcome if the subject is shown a more effective way to accomplish the task. A study subject was shown a film comparing his task performance, kicking a target as rapidly as possible, with that of a known way of minimizing kicking time. Though the subject had reached the limit of his ability to improve through practice as predicted by the power law of learning, viewing the film resulted in a breakthrough in his ability that defied the power law of learning. Viewing the film is an example of [[observational learning]], which effectively gives the viewer new memories of a technique to draw upon for his or her future performances of the task.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Learning and memory : from brain to behavior|last1=Eduardo.|first1=Mercado|last2=E.|first2=Myers, Catherine|year=2014|isbn=9781429240147|pages=312|publisher=Worth Publishers |oclc=961181739}}</ref>

==Tests==

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===Serial reaction time task===

This task involves having participants retain and learn procedural skills that assess specific memory for procedural-motor skill.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Balota | first1 = D.A. | last2 = Connor | first2 = L.T. | last3 = Ferraro | first3 = F.R. | year = 1993 | title = Implicit Memory and the Formation of New Associations in Nondemented Parkinson's Disease Individuals and Individuals with Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer Type: A Serial Reaction Time (SRT) Investigation | url = https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9e453e33dd0980a64ef0035555e19cc28d21c304| journal = Brain and Cognition | volume = 21 | issue = 2| pages = 163–180 | doi=10.1006/brcg.1993.1013| pmid = 8442933 | s2cid = 36405765 }}</ref> These skills are measured by observing the speed and accuracy of the participant's ability to retain and acquire new skills. The [[reaction time]] is the time it takes for the participant to respond to the designated cue presented to them.<ref name="Acquisition of Mirror Tracing">{{cite journal | last1 = Corkin | first1 = S. | last2 = Gabrieli | first2 = J. D. E. | last3 = Growdon | first3 = J. H. | last4 = Mickel | first4 = S. F. | year = 1993 | title = Intact Acquisition and Long-Term Retention of Mirror-Tracing Skill in Alzheimer's Disease and in Global Amnesia | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/9667d2bffca076be7a0de774dd4e92832bb77d6f| journal = Behavioral Neuroscience | volume = 107 | issue = 6| pages = 899–910 | doi=10.1037/0735-7044.107.6.899| pmid = 8136066 | s2cid = 18015440 }}</ref> Participants with Alzheimer's disease and amnesia demonstrate a long retention time which indicates that they are able to retain the skill and demonstrate effective performance of the task at a later point in time.<ref name="Acquisition of Mirror Tracing"/>

===Mirror tracing task===

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==Expertise==

===Divided attention===

There are several factors that contribute to the exceptional performance of a skill: memory capacities,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Chase | first1 = W. G. | last2 = Simon | first2 = H. A. | year = 1973 | title = Perception in chess | journal = Cognitive Psychology | volume = 4 | pages = 55–81 | doi=10.1016/0010-0285(73)90004-2}}</ref><ref>Starkes, J. L., & Deakin, J. (1984). Perception in sport: A cognitive approach to skilled performance. In W. F. Straub & J. M. Williams (Eds.), Cognitive sport psychology (pp. 115–128). Lansing, MI: Sport Science Associates.</ref> knowledge structures,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Chi | first1 = M. T. | last2 = Feltovich | first2 = P. J. | last3 = Glaser | first3 = R. | year = 1981 | title = Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices | journal = Cognitive Science | volume = 5 | issue = 2| pages = 121–152 | doi=10.1207/s15516709cog0502_2| doi-access = free }}</ref> problem-solving abilities,<ref>Tenenbaum, G., & Bar-Eli, M. (1993). Decision-making in sport: A cognitive perspective. In R. N. Singer, M. Murphey, & L. K. Tennant (Eds.), Handbook of research on sport psychology (pp. 171–192). New York: Macmillan.</ref> and attentional abilities.<ref name="attention">{{cite journal | last1 = Beilock | first1 = S.L. | last2 = Carr | first2 = T.H. | last3 = MacMahon | first3 = C. | last4 = Starkes | first4 = J.L. | year = 2002 | title = When Paying Attention Becomes Counterproductive: Impact of Divided Versus Skill-Focused Attention on Novice and Experienced Performance of Sensorimotor Skills | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/3bbd5a432c08263b0bebcc888d9592ffe4bec50f| journal = Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied | volume = 8 | issue = 1| pages = 6–16 | doi=10.1037/1076-898x.8.1.6| pmid = 12009178 | s2cid = 15358285 }}</ref> They all play key roles, each with its own degree of importance based on the procedures and skills required, the context, and the intended goals of the performance. Using these individualized abilities to compare how experts and novices differ regarding both cognitive and sensorimotor skills has provided a wealth of insight into what makes an expert excellent, and conversely, what sorts of mechanisms novices lack. Evidence suggests that an often overlooked condition for skill excellence is attentional mechanisms involved in the effective utilization and deployment of procedural memory during the real-time execution of skills. Research suggests that early in skill learning, execution is controlled by a set of unintegrated procedural steps that are held in working memory and attended to one-by-one in a step-by-step fashion.<ref>Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref><ref name="Anderson, J. R. 1993">Anderson, J. R. (1993). Rules of mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.</ref><ref>Proctor, R. W., & Dutta, A. (1995). Skill acquisition and human performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.</ref> The problem with this is that attention is a limited resource. Therefore, this step-by-step process of controlling task performance occupies attentional capacity which in turn reduces the performer's ability to focus on other aspects of the performance, such as decision making, fine motor-skills, self-monitoring of energy level and "seeing the field or ice or court". However, with practice, [[procedural knowledge]] develops, which operates largely outside of working memory, and thus allows for skills to be executed more automatically.<ref name="Anderson, J. R. 1993"/><ref name="Langer, E. 1979">{{cite journal | last1 = Langer | first1 = E. | last2 = Imber | first2 = G. | year = 1979 | title = When practice makes imperfect: Debilitating effects of overlearning | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 37 | issue = 11| pages = 2014–2024 | doi=10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2014| pmid = 521900 }}</ref> This, of course, has a very positive effect on overall performance by freeing the mind of the need to closely monitor and attend to the more basic, mechanical skills, so that attention can be paid to other processes.<ref name="attention"/>

===Choking under pressure===

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====Rising to the occasion====

If choking on skill-based or co-ordination oriented tasks requires the pressure of the situation to cause the performer's increased conscious attention to his or her process of performance, then the reverse can also be true. A relatively unexplored area of scientific research is the concept of "rising to the occasion." One common misconception is that a person must be an expert in order to have consistent success under pressure. On the contrary, implicit knowledge has been hypothesized to only partially mediate the relationship between expertise and performance.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Otten | first1 = M | year = 2009 | title = Choking vs. Clutch Performance: A Study of Sport Performance Under Pressure | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/8667b5039256346f271e4d30673bbbefaa058474| journal = Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology| volume = 31 | issue = 5| pages = 583–601 | doi = 10.1123/jsep.31.5.583 | pmid = 20016110 | s2cid = 17296824 }}</ref> It works closely with a perceived control of the task, and can often trump expertise if the performer embodies procedural comfort within the ___domain. Traditionally, "rising to the occasion" or being "clutch" has been used in reference to sporting feats of particular excellence given the magnitude of the event, however there is increasing awareness to the phenomenon in our everyday life. How one performs under circumstances that do not necessarily present immediate or grave consequence, but do require the performer to actively access a conscious mechanism to perform in unfamiliar or uncomfortable settings, is a concept that may prove educationally beneficial across a variety of disciplines and activities.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Baumeister | first1 = Roy F | year = 1984 | title = Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/d8b270163ea5d86be72e2fcb068353226ff9bc59| journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 46 | issue = 3| pages = 610–620 | doi=10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.610| pmid = 6707866 | s2cid = 43839986 }}</ref>

====Famous examples of choking====

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==Sleep==

Practice is clearly an important process for learning and perfecting a new skill. With over 40 years of research, it is well established in both humans and animals that the formation of all forms of memory are greatly enhanced during the brain-state of sleep. Furthermore, with humans, sleep has been consistently shown to aid in the development of procedural knowledge by the ongoing process of memory consolidation, especially when sleep soon follows the initial phase of memory acquisition.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Karni | first1 = A. | last2 = Tanne | first2 = D. | last3 = Rubenstein | first3 = B.S. | last4 = Askenasy | first4 = J.J. | last5 = Sagi | first5 = D. | year = 1994 | title = Dependence on REM sleep of overnight improvement of a perceptual skill | journal = Science | volume = 265 | issue = 5172| pages = 679–682 | doi=10.1126/science.8036518| pmid = 8036518 | bibcode = 1994Sci...265..679K }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Gais | first1 = S. | last2 = Plihal | first2 = W. | last3 = Wagner | first3 = U. | last4 = Born | first4 = J. | year = 2000 | title = Early sleep triggers memory for early visual discrimination skills | journal = Nat. Neurosci. | volume = 3 | issue = 12| pages = 1335–1339 | doi=10.1038/81881| pmid = 11100156 | s2cid = 2075857 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Stickgold | first1 = R. | last2 = James | first2 = L. | last3 = Hobson | first3 = J.A. | year = 2000a | title = Visual discrimination learning requires sleep after training | journal = Nat. Neurosci. | volume = 3 | issue = 12| pages = 1237–1238 | doi=10.1038/81756| pmid = 11100141 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Stickgold | first1 = R. | last2 = Whidbee | first2 = D. | last3 = Schirmer | first3 = B. | last4 = Patel | first4 = V. | last5 = Hobson | first5 = J.A. | year = 2000b | title = Visual discrimination task improvement: A multi-step process occurring during sleep | url = https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f635eb5e63eff7dc17c1b0b9548f80b1b35b76cf| journal = J. Cogn. Neurosci. | volume = 12 | issue = 2| pages = 246–254 | doi=10.1162/089892900562075| pmid = 10771409 | s2cid = 37714158 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Walker | first1 = M.P. | last2 = Brakefield | first2 = T. | last3 = Morgan | first3 = A. | last4 = Hobson | first4 = J.A. | last5 = Stickgold | first5 = R. | year = 2002 | title = Practice with sleep makes perfect: Sleep dependent motor skill learning | journal = Neuron | volume = 35 | issue = 1| pages = 205–211 | doi=10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00746-8 | pmid=12123620| s2cid = 7025533 | doi-access = free }}</ref> Memory consolidation is a process that transforms novel memories from a relatively fragile state to a more robust and stable condition. For a long time it was believed that the consolidation of procedural memories took place solely as a function of time,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Brashers-Krug | first1 = T. | last2 = Shadmehr | first2 = R. | last3 = Bizzi | first3 = E. | year = 1996 | title = Consolidation in human motor memory | journal = Nature | volume = 382 | issue = 6588| pages = 252–255 | doi=10.1038/382252a0| pmid = 8717039 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.39.3383 | bibcode = 1996Natur.382..252B | s2cid = 4316225 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = McGaugh | first1 = J.L. | year = 2000 | title = Memory—A century of consolidation | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/4599cc62e637a5619b3f9ee8dd2326d7288cbb1c| journal = Science | volume = 287 | issue = 5451| pages = 248–251 | doi=10.1126/science.287.5451.248 | pmid=10634773| bibcode = 2000Sci...287..248M | s2cid = 40693856 }}</ref> but more recent studies suggest, that for certain forms of learning, the consolidation process is exclusively enhanced during periods of sleep.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Fischer | first1 = S. | last2 = Hallschmid | first2 = M. | last3 = Elsner | first3 = A.L. | last4 = Born | first4 = J. | year = 2002 | title = Sleep forms memory for finger skills | journal = Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA | volume = 99 | issue = 18| pages = 11987–11991 | doi=10.1073/pnas.182178199| pmid = 12193650 | pmc = 129381 | bibcode = 2002PNAS...9911987F | doi-access = free }}</ref> However, it is important to note that not just any type of sleep is sufficient to improve procedural memory and performance on subsequent procedural tasks. In fact, within the ___domain of motor skill, there is evidence showing that no improvement on tasks is shown following a short, [[non-rapid eye movement]] (NREM; stages 2–4) sleep, such as a nap.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Siegel | first1 = J. M. | year = 2001 | title = The REM sleep-memory consolidation hypothesis | journal = Science | volume = 294 | issue = 5544| pages = 1058–1063 | doi=10.1126/science.1063049| pmid = 11691984 | pmc = 8760621 | bibcode = 2001Sci...294.1058S | s2cid = 2214566 }}</ref> [[REM sleep]] following a period of [[slow-wave sleep]] (SWS; combined stage 3 and 4 and the deepest form of NREM sleep), has shown to be the most beneficial type of sleep for procedural memory enhancement, especially when it takes place immediately after the initial acquisition of a skill. So essentially, a full night (or day) of uninterrupted sleep soon after learning a skill will allow for the most memory consolidation possible. Furthermore, if REM sleep is disrupted, there is no gain in procedural performance shown.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Karni | first1 = A. | last2 = Meyer | first2 = G. | last3 = Rey-Hipolito | first3 = C. | last4 = Jezzard | first4 = P. | last5 = Adams | first5 = M.M. | last6 = Turner | first6 = R. | last7 = Ungerleider | first7 = L.G. | year = 1998 | title = The acquisition of skilled motor performance: Fast and slow experience-driven changes in primarymotor cortex | journal = Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA | volume = 95 | issue = 3| pages = 861–868 | doi=10.1073/pnas.95.3.861| pmid = 9448252 | pmc = 33809 | bibcode = 1998PNAS...95..861K | doi-access = free }}</ref> However, equal improvement will take place whether the sleep after practice was at night or during the daytime, as long as SWS is followed by REM sleep. It has also been shown that the enhancement in memory is specific to the learned stimulus (i.e., learning a running technique will not cross over to improvements in biking performance).<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Mednick | first1 = S.C. | display-authors = etal | year = 2003 | title = Sleep-dependent learning: a nap is as good as a night | url = https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee698a6866fc21686c4e6798f0c3dbc13e568d2d| journal = Nat. Neurosci. | volume = 6 | issue = 7| pages = 697–698 | doi=10.1038/nn1078 | pmid=12819785| s2cid = 16348039 }}</ref> Subject performance in the Wff 'n Proof Task,<ref>Smith C. REM sleep and learning: some recent findings. In: Moffit A, Kramer M, Hoffman H, editors. The functions of dreaming. Albany:SUNY; 1993.</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = C | last2 = Fazekas | first2 = A | year = 1997 | title = Amount of REM sleep and Stage 2 sleep required for efficient learning | journal = Sleep Res | volume = 26 | page = 690 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = C | last2 = Weeden | first2 = K | year = 1990 | title = Post training REMs coincident auditory stimulation enhances memory in humans | journal = Psychiatr J Univ Ott | volume = 15 | issue = 2| pages = 85–90 | pmid = 2374793 }}</ref> the [[Tower of Hanoi]],<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = CT | last2 = Nixon | first2 = MR | last3 = Nader | first3 = RS | year = 2004 | title = Post training increases in REM sleep intensity implicate REM sleep in memory processing and provide a biological marker of learning potential | journal = Learn Mem | volume = 11 | issue = 6| pages = 714–9 | doi=10.1101/lm.74904| pmid = 15576889 | pmc = 534700 }}</ref> and the Mirror Tracing Task<ref>Conway J, Smith C. REM sleep and learning in humans: a sensitivity to specific types of learning tasks. In: Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society. 1994.</ref> has been found to improve following REM sleep periods.

Whether a skill is learned explicitly (with [[attention]]) or implicitly, each plays a role in the offline consolidation effect. Research suggests that explicit awareness and understanding of the skill being learned during the acquisition process greatly improves the consolidation of procedural memories during sleep.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Robertson | first1 = E.M. | display-authors = etal | year = 2004 | title = Awareness modifies skill-learning benefits of sleep | journal = Curr. Biol. | volume = 14 | issue = 3| pages = 208–212 | doi=10.1016/s0960-9822(04)00039-9| pmid = 14761652 | doi-access = free }}</ref> This finding is not surprising, as it is widely accepted that intention and awareness at time of learning enhances the acquisition of most forms of memory.