[ExI] neuroscience questions

[William Flynn Wallace]

Re high school  Spanish - yes, we forget but not permanently.  If you were
to take it up again, you would find that relearning it would go far faster
than learning it in the first place, showing that some memories are still
there.  (ex - rat study - teach the rat something - cut out a piece of his
brain - put him back in maze or whatever - if it took him 20 trials to
learn and 20 trials to relearn then no memories are there but you did not
affect his ability to learn; only his memory.  If 20 trials to learn and 10
to relearn, he is recalling 50%, and so on).

I have no doubt that my three years of high school Latin are in there
somewhere (though I am not going to relearn it - got online translators for
that).

Ergo - I am wondering if it is a physical thing, maybe housed in the
cerebellum and not a memory thing.  I can go back to my musical instruments
and remember every finger position etc. but my fingers are like they are
encased in glue.  Coordination and not memory?  Huh?

bill w

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 2:42 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know why it is that pro athletes and, just for another
>> example, classically trained musicians need to practice so much?
>>
>> My violinist friend said:  "If I don't practice today, I know it.  If I
>> don't practice tomorrow, you'll know it.  If I don't practice the next day,
>> everyone will know it."
>>
>> Could it be that rarely practiced skills representing certain brain areas
>> get taken over by new concerns?  I have no clue.
>>
>
> Basically, yeah.  There's muscle memory involved as well, for both
> athletes and, as you put it, classically trained musicians.
>
> The same thing explains why, despite taking multiple classes in Spanish
> back in high school, my current ability to speak and understand Spanish is
> minimal.
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