Dr. Michael Ullman from the Department of Neuroscience from
Georgetown University visited Beijing Normal University last
week. I attended his talk entitled "What Rats can tell us about
Language: Contributions of Declarative and Procedural Memory to
Language". He began with a general overview of the two memory
systems, declarative and procedural memory. Declarative memory
is the "what", and can be divided into episodic (personal
experiences) and semantic memory (facts). Procedural memory is
the "how" and is responsible for the learning and control of
motor and cognitive skills. He emphasized some subtle
differences between the two memory systems; speed of learning
and retention. Declarative memory involves quick learning with a
moderate retention rate, while Procedural memory relies on a
more gradual learning process but has an excellent retention
rate (Maybe that's where the quote "It's like riding a bike"
comes from!). Both systems involve navigation but in different
ways; landmark-based navigation is declar