ABSTRACT
Although the term memory is colloquially used to refer to our conscious ability to remember past experiences, within psychology and neuroscience the term is used more broadly to incorporate unconscious influences of our past on our current perceptions and actions. In some instances, we are not aware of (and thus cannot report) the influences of some of our prior experiences, even though our behavior can provide evidence of those prior experiences. For example, if you tried to explain to someone how to successfully hit a tennis ball, or how to drive a stick-shift car, you likely would not do a very good job of consciously constructing the chain of sequences that you carry out to succeed at these tasks. Similarly, you may realize that you are very afraid of dogs but not remember that there was a particular event that triggered this fear (whereas perhaps your parents would remember that you were bitten by a neighbor’s dog as a small child). Even though you might not be able to consciously remember the sequence used to hit a tennis ball, or the reason for your fear of dogs, your behavior provides a clear indication of your training in tennis and of your earlier encounter with a vicious dog. These unconscious influences of our past experiences on our current behavior are typically referred to as implicit or nondeclarative memories, reflecting the fact that they are implicit in our behavior rather than being declared in an explicit fashion. Unlike most forms of long-term memory, which rely on the hippocampal formation (see Chapter 2), implicit memory can exist even in individuals with damage to the hippocampal memory system. Although the majority of human research has focused on examining emotion’s influence on explicit memory, there also are far-reaching effects of emotion on implicit learning. It is likely that at least as much, if not more, of our behavior is molded through unconscious influences of past experiences than through our conscious recollection of prior events. Therefore, it is critical to understand how emotion may influence our behavior at this implicit level.
