Imagine trying to describe to someone how to ride a bike. It’s tough to put into words, and even though it’s been years since your parents taught you, you are confident that if you found yourself on a bike, you’d easily cycle along. Even if you try to explain it, you may get it wrong. If someone asked you how to turn right, you’d probably say “Turn your handlebars to the right,” but that would cause them to fall. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s actually a small left turn of the handlebars that helps you to steer right. It might sound counterintuitive, but check out this video that explains the physics behind it!  However, you don’t need to know how to explain it—you just remember how to do it, allowing you to simply hop on and go!

The reason that you can remember how to ride a bike is thanks to implicit memory. Sometimes referred to as unconscious memory, implicit memory is a type of long-term memory where, even though information is not purposefully or consciously committed to memory, it is stored in our brains for future use. We effortlessly use the knowledge stored as implicit memory to carry out activities without having to consciously recall the information. One of the most common forms of implicit memory is procedural memory, which involves the remembering and use of motor skills that allow us to complete tasks like riding a bike without much thought.¹

Some other examples of implicit memory at work include:

• Singing the lyrics to your favorite song, even though you didn’t study them
• Touch-typing on a keyboard, even though you’d struggle to tell someone what letters are in the first row
• Navigating to work without using Google Maps, though you may not recall the name of every street you take

Implicit memory is described in contrast to explicit memory, another type of long-term memory which refers to information that you consciously try to remember, often learned through studying or retained from highly emotional personal experiences. When accessing explicit memory, people usually have to consciously retrieve the information, a process that may be prompted by a test question that asks you to recall factual information, or someone asking you about an event in your life, like your wedding day.¹

Implicit memory and explicit memory work in conjunction on a day-to-day basis to help guide your decisions and behavior. For example, if you’re participating in an interview, your implicit memory guides you to walk in with a smile, greet the interviewer with a firm handshake, and make plenty of eye contact throughout the interview; all behaviors that you have learned over the years make you appear confident. When the interviewer asks, “Can you tell me about a time you experienced conflict in the workplace?” you will draw on your explicit memory to consciously retrieve a personal experience to answer the question. 

Encoding: The process of turning new sensory information into a format that can be retained in memory storage. The information will first be stored in our short-term memory, and some of the more key details will make it into our long-term memory.⁴ For implicit memory, information can be encoded and can move between storage systems automatically or through repetition (like in the case of procedural skills). 

Retrieval: The process of taking information out of our memory when we need to use it at a later time.⁴ For implicit memory, retrieval occurs unconsciously, allowing you to complete tasks without effort or guiding your behavior without awareness. 

Priming: When exposure to a stimulus influences our response to a subsequent prompt without us being aware of the connection. For example, if you are shown the word “animal” and then are asked to look at an illusion of an image that could either be perceived as an ear or a rat, you are more likely to perceive it as a rat. 

Long-Term Memory: A storage system in our brains where information is held for extended periods, whether it be hours or years. Information is only stored in our short-term memory for approximately 15-30 seconds, but through association with previous knowledge and rehearsal, it moves into our long-term storage. Although our long-term memory is relatively unlimited and stable, we are prone to making mistakes when recalling the information.⁵

Explicit Memory: A type of long-term memory surrounding information that requires purposeful and conscious effort to recall. Explicit memory can be divided into two subtypes: semantic memory, which has to do with factual information, and episodic memory, which is information related to personal experiences and events.⁶ 

In the early 20th century, behaviorism was the dominant psychological framework: researchers were only interested in observable behavior, which meant there wasn’t a great deal of interest in understanding how memory worked. Memory was assumed to be a uniform system, thus it was believed that all information was stored in one, undifferentiated system and encoded and retrieved in the same way.⁶ As there was a shift towards cognitive psychology in the mid-20th century, psychologists Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin developed a multi-store memory model that outlined three memory stores (sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory) and described how information passes through each of them.⁷ 

The multi-store model was generally accepted by researchers, but each store was still viewed as a single unified system that stored all types of information. The multi-store model of memory provided a framework with which to better understand a peculiar case that happened in 1953, when a man named Henry Gustav Molaison underwent a medial temporal lobectomy in hopes of reducing his debilitating epileptic seizures. 

Molaison was involved in a bicycling accident at age seven and began to have seizures at 10. By the age of 27, the seizures were so bad that he was unable to hold a steady job or lead a normal life. During the surgery, parts of his amygdala and nearly all of his hippocampus were removed. After the surgery, Molaison developed severe anterograde amnesia, seemingly unable to form new memories following the surgery, but not all of Molaison’s memory was impaired. British-Canadian neuroscientist Brenda Milner conducted tests on Molaison to further understand his memory capabilities and found that he was able to quickly learn new motor skills. His ability to acquire new procedural skills suggested the existence of a distinct type of long-term memory that did not rely exclusively on the hippocampus.⁸

However, the findings from Molaison’s case were initially met with some resistance. Researchers were unable to recreate the impairment with animal studies. When they removed the same parts of monkeys’ brains, they were able to learn information or tasks that Molaison couldn’t.⁸ 

Other amnesic patients showed similar patterns, where they exhibited a deficiency in remembering factual information or personal experiences from before brain damage, but had preserved or were able to improve on procedural skills. In the early 1980s, researchers started to see how exposure to stimuli can impact how we later behave and think, suggesting that information is unconsciously being stored in our long-term memory. Priming is where information that we previously unconsciously learned guides future behavior. For example, if a researcher shows you the word “teacher” and then a list of unrelated words, your eyes will be drawn to the word “student” much faster than another word like “kitchen.” Priming provided greater evidence of the existence of implicit memory, as experimental tasks like the one previously mentioned do not require conscious recollection of previous information or experience, contrasting traditional tests of recall.⁹ 

In the late 1980s to 1990s, neuroimaging allowed researchers to confirm the distinction between explicit and implicit memory. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans and other types of neuroimaging showed that there were different parts of the brain active during different memory tasks when testing implicit versus explicit memory. These scans revealed that implicit memory is thought to involve the basal ganglia and cerebellum, whereas explicit memory relies primarily on the hippocampus. These scans also showed that during priming, there is reduced brain activity, suggesting a kind of efficient processing without conscious awareness.¹⁰ 

Today, the study of implicit and explicit memory and the relationship between them continues to evolve. Insights into how our memory works can improve teaching methods, inform therapy treatments for amnesic patients, and provide a foundation for building machine learning systems that mimic human memory.

Richard Atkinson & Richard Shiffrin

American psychologists who developed the multi-store model of memory, which explains how information passes from our senses to short-term memory and then to long-term memory in a linear fashion. Both psychologists had a significant impact on our understanding of memory, learning, and the processes that underscore each. Throughout his career, Atkinson conducted in-depth research showing how mathematical models could be applied to human memory and cognition, as well as research into the effectiveness of diverse teaching methods.11 Shiffrin later went on to develop a theory of attention that suggested it could be divided into two types: controlled processing and automatic processing, the latter often being the kind used in tasks requiring implicit memory.¹²

Henry Gustav Molaison

A patient who became amnesic after undergoing a surgery to manage his epileptic seizures, which left him with the unfortunate side effect of severe but selective amnesia, and played a pivotal role in our understanding of memory. During the surgery in 1953, parts of Molaison’s amygdala and hippocampus were removed, which resulted in an impairment in his ability to form new memories following the surgery, such as the names of his nurses or daily events. However, he was able to quickly pick up new motor skills, which led researchers to believe that there were two different types of long-term memory, although they did not yet have the framework to describe it.⁸ 

Brenda Milner

A British-Canadian neuroscientist who conducted research with patients with brain damage, like Henry Molaison, to better understand how memory works. Throughout her more than 50-year career, Milner conducted extensive research on the role of the frontal lobe in memory, emotion, and cognition.^13,14 

Implicit memory influences many aspects of our daily lives, often without us realizing it. From learning and education to consumer behavior and healthcare experiences, its effects can shape our choices, feelings, and even outcomes in subtle but powerful ways.

Improved outcomes for students with learning disabilities

Research has shown that individuals with learning disabilities sometimes have a harder time retaining and recalling information related to explicit memory, which hinders their learning. However, often, they perform equally to their peers for tasks that draw on implicit memory. 

In 2003, 85 students, half of whom had been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities, participated in a study to explore the impact of learning disabilities on implicit and explicit memory tests. Students were shown a sequence of letters, some following rules (e.g., A-B-C), and others being random (A-C-D). In the implicit learning condition, students were just shown the sequences, whereas in an explicit learning condition, they were taught rules such as “B must always follow A.” After learning the sequences, students were given new sequences and asked if they followed or violated the rules. 

While students with learning disabilities performed worse in the explicit learning condition compared to students without learning disabilities, in the implicit condition, the two groups performed comparably. This suggests that when individuals with learning disabilities learn implicitly, without explicit instructions or rules, they retain information better. This can provide valuable insight for how to approach education and teaching techniques to accommodate individual learning variations.¹⁵ 

Marketing & advertising

Marketers and advertisers can leverage implicit memory to get consumers to unconsciously and passively absorb information about their brand and link it to positive experiences or associations, which makes them more likely to purchase their product—all without them knowing that they are being influenced!

Implicit memory is why a lot of brands will choose to sponsor events like concerts, sports games, or music festivals, because repeated exposure in emotionally engaging settings helps consumers form positive associations with the brand without consciously realizing it. Do you remember who sponsored Taylor Swift’s Canada leg of the Eras Tour? Probably not, but it was the Royal Bank of Canada, and that move contributed to them gaining over 600,000 clients in its final quarter of 2024. By sponsoring the tour and having their logo prominently displayed on marketing materials and at shows, consumers were unconsciously associating the company with the fun they had at the concert, or as being linked to one of their favorite artists. When it comes to picking a new bank, this information remains in the back of our heads, even if we don’t realize it, guiding decisions on where to invest our money.¹⁶ 

Priming in healthcare

Priming is a technique that relies on implicit memory, where exposure to a stimulus influences a subsequent decision or behavior. Priming can be used by healthcare professionals to nudge people towards more positive health behaviors or deter them from engaging in harmful behaviors, such as printing scary-looking images of lung cancer on cigarette cartons so people associate smoking with these images. Just as we explicitly learn associations through tools like flashcards, we can also implicitly learn associations between certain environments, words, or experiences and particular emotions. These subtle mental links can shape how we respond in the future.

Priming can also help people have more positive experiences during a doctor’s appointment or visit to the emergency room, contexts that often cause people high levels of stress and anxiety. Before giving a child a vaccine, the doctor may say, “This might pinch a bit,” instead of  “This might hurt a bit,” as the word choice is likely implicitly remembered and could impact the level of pain the child anticipates or feels.

One study found that having art on the walls in an emergency room can reduce people’s frustration with wait times, positively distracting them and changing patients’ focus from their pain to their environment. The 2012 study compared the noise levels and number of queries made at the front desk at two hospitals before and after visual art depicting nature was hung on the walls, and found that they had both decreased. The art may have calmed patients and improved their waiting room experience, which is likely to have positive effects on their perception of pain.¹⁷ 

While implicit memory is widely accepted as a distinct and unconscious form of memory, researchers continue to debate key aspects of how it works. Questions remain about how separate it is from explicit memory, how unconscious it truly is, and whether it functions the same way in everyone.

How distinct are implicit and explicit memory?

Although implicit and explicit memory may describe the encoding and retrieval of different kinds of information, there is debate surrounding whether they simply describe different types of memory or whether they rely on different brain systems. While explicit memory relies on the hippocampus and temporal lobe, and implicit memory relies on the cerebellum and amygdala, often, these regions are not operating in isolation: multiple brain systems are engaged across learning tasks.¹⁸ 

One paper challenges the dichotomy between implicit and explicit memory systems by demonstrating that the hippocampus often performs a role in implicit memory as well. In contextual cueing tasks, where people are asked to repeatedly search for an object (like the number 3 among a bunch of other numbers), they become faster over time when it appears in similar visual arrangements, suggesting they have implicitly learned the context. Brain scans reveal that the hippocampus is often used in contextual cueing tasks, even though participants are not consciously aware that they are learning the visual arrangements.¹⁹

Is implicit memory really unconscious?

Implicit memory is often characterized as being unconscious, suggesting that the information contained in these memories is not accessible to our awareness. However, encoding and retrieving implicit memory often requires attention, a conscious process, which begs the question of whether implicit memory is fully unconscious.

One study found that priming only occurred when participants paid attention to previous stimuli, but not if they ignored them. Priming is typically thought to involve implicit memory, as it influences subsequent behavior or decisions without our consciousness. In the study, 91 participants were shown a series of images on screen, where some objects were real and some were nonsense. Participants were told to pay attention to objects that appeared in one color, either magenta or cyan, and to identify the nonsense objects that corresponded to that color. They were told to ignore the objects in the other color. 

Afterwards, one group participated in a recognition phase, where fifty attended objects (the color they were focused on), fifty ignored objects, and fifty new objects were shown, and they were asked which had been presented in the first phase. The other group participated in a fragment identification test, where fragmented versions of the previously attended to and ignored objects were shown, and they were asked to identify the object.

The researchers found that participants were both better able to recognize attended objects than ignored objects in the recognition phase, and were much faster at recognizing the fragmented versions of objects that had been previously attended to than those that were ignored. The results suggested that attention plays a crucial role in recognition memory and priming, suggesting that implicit memory may not be fully unconscious, as it is influenced by the conscious act of paying attention.²⁰ 

Is implicit memory uniform across people?

Implicit memory was initially believed to be relatively uniform across all individuals, described as being independent of age and IQ, and resistant to disease or injury, suggesting that there would be low variability between people. 

However, some research has shown that there are individual differences in performance related to implicit memory. Researchers conducted a study where participants were tested in four different implicit memory tests: artificial grammar learning (participants are shown sequences but not told the rules governing them and then asked if a word follows the sequence rule), probabilistic classification (shown images with specific features and asked to classify without being told the rules of classification), serial reaction time (push a corresponding button after seeing a visual cue), and category learning (classifying objects based on shared features). After testing, participants completed a learning task based on one or more of the four tests, where they completed similar tests again but were given feedback after each decision. After 1-2 weeks, participants were asked to participate in all four tests again. 

The researchers found that participants performed consistently from their first test to their second test, but varied from one another. Those who had performed well the first time performed well the second time. This suggests that the differences in people’s implicit memory are not random, and some people have better implicit memory than others, a pattern that holds across different sessions. While the researchers did not test what factors may be correlated with better implicit memory, the study suggests that it’s not necessarily a universal process with little variation from person to person.²¹ 

Implicit memory’s resistance to interference

Although our long-term memory storage is relatively stable and unlimited, that’s not to say that we can access those memories with perfect accuracy. Factors like additional information, emotions, and external prompts can all impact how well we remember. However, implicit memory shows a greater resistance to error than explicit memory because we aren’t consciously recalling the information—it’s unconsciously recalled by our brains and communicated to our bodies when we need to perform a task. 

Implicit memory has been shown to be more resistant to retroactive interference. Retroactive interference is when newly learned information alters the recall of previously stored memories, making it more challenging to remember accurately. Psychologists Peter Graf and Daniel Schacter conducted a study to determine the effect of interference on implicit and explicit memory. Sixty-four students participated in a study where they were shown an initial list of word pairs, like bottle-window (AB pair), and then were shown a second list of word pairs that included some of the same words as the first list, such as bottle-shirt (AC pair). Afterwards, the students were asked to complete two different memory tests.²²

The first test examined the impact of interference on explicit memory tasks. Students were shown incomplete word pairs like bottle-___ and asked to complete the pair based on what they had seen in the original list, which meant they had to use conscious recall. In the second test, students were shown incomplete words (like win__), but simply asked to fill in the blank with the first word that came to mind.

Graf and Schacter found that recall was impacted for the explicit memory tests, as new information shown in the second list of word pairs interfered with their memory of words in the first list. However, their ability to complete word pairs in the implicit memory test was not impacted by interference, as students were unconsciously remembering the first word that came to mind. Other studies have similarly shown a reduced effect of retroactive interference on implicit memory.²² 

The man with a 7-second memory

Patients with brain damage and amnesia provide interesting insights into how our memory functions. Cases like Henry Gustav Molaison were instrumental in understanding that individuals who lose their explicit memory can often still remember or relearn motor skills, suggesting their implicit memory is unharmed.

Clive Wearing, a former musician and conductor, is another case study that deepened our understanding of memory. In 1985, he contracted a severe viral infection, which led to one of the most extreme cases of amnesia ever seen. He is known as the man with a seven-second memory due to damage to his hippocampus, which has left him unable to transfer memories from his short-term storage to his long-term storage. Every seven seconds, Clive believes he has just woken up, and he remembers very little of his life from before the brain damage.

However, Wearing still demonstrates exceptional musical prowess, able to play the piano and conduct a choir as well as he did before the brain damage. He can also improve in certain tasks, even though he has no recollection of doing them before. His preserved abilities suggest that his implicit memory has remained intact and that it operates without conscious awareness. 

Although he cannot remember most of his personal experiences, Wearing has retained his love for his wife Deborah, showing deep and consistent emotional responses to her, suggesting that his past experiences with his wife have unconsciously become deeply embedded within his memory, which impacts his response to her every time she enters a room. This suggests that emotional memories tap into a form of implicit memory that does not make use of the hippocampus. Wearing’s case provided further evidence of the distinction between implicit and explicit memory and the different areas of the brain related to each.²³ 

Cognitive Load Theory

Our ability to learn and remember information is impacted by the cognitive load that it places on our brains. In this article, our writer Isaac Koenig-Workman explores the three different types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane, and describes how our brains attempt to reduce the extraneous load, blocking out distractions, to improve our ability to learn. 

Routine in Quarantine: The Upside of a Pandemic

If you’re interested in learning more about the value that memories have on our sense of self and well-being, check out this article by our writer Jeremy Koloski. COVID-19 shook up all of our routines, and although we are creatures of habit, it may have been for the best. It forced us to break out of the norm and thus accrue new memories, which has some benefits. Koloski explores how often, when making decisions, we consider what memories we will collect to guide our behavior. 

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