Muscle Memory

[sleigh]

Constance Ash, over in a newsgroup to which we both belong, pointed to this article about feline memory. To sum up the article, a study of memory in cats implies that while they use vision for short term memory, they create longer memory patterns by 'doing.' The scientists placed a three inch high barrier between cats and food, then removed the barrier while distracting the cats. The cats, when going back to the food, still 'stepped over' the barrier, even though it was no longer there...

Doesn't surprise me. We humans use "muscle memory" too. I can play songs that I learned years ago via chord charts, but I can only play them if I don't think about them. My fingers remember the positions and will go to the right place all on their own, but if I actually dare to think "What chord's next?" or try to focus on the fingering, I'm doomed.

Likewise, I can get thrown into a high fall in aikido -- and if it happens fast and sudden, my body just does the fall. It's when I have time to think "OK, how should I fall from this position?" that the fall is hard...

Actively trying to think about such things, or to actively attempt to 'remember' them, actually screws up any chance of success.

Anyone else have that kind of experience?

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I am like that with my word processor. If someone asks me how I put something in italics or whatever, I have to think about it. If I want to do it, my fingers know how.

Automatic physical reactions

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

I've had experiences like that.

From age six until I was a young teen, I did both gymnastics and ballet.

As a teenager and young adult, there were two different times I careened over a fence, one off a horse, which could have ended *very* badly, and another when I tried to jump over rope fence.

Both times I automatically flipped into a forward roll instead of landing on my head or front. I went "over" my toes (when they hit the rope fence) or forward and over my side (when I flung myself off of a runaway horse), over a wood fence.

Both times, I put my hands down on the ground, tucked my head under and rolled to a sitting position.

Now that I think it about, that training saved me from a potentially very serious injury.

Hmm . . .

[podling]

Actually, I've noticed this with random little things. Like I can dial phone numbers for people I haven't dialed in years if I go a little blank and just do it rather than thinking. Or if I play catch (which I rarely do these days) I automatically drop to a catcher's position when a ball is coming in low. Or with boating in small boats (canoes, kayaks, small sailboats) I generally counterbalance without thinking.

[podling]

One addition actually... I used to have a phone that had two rows of numbers rather than three. It was impossible for most of my friends to use, probably because of muscle memory.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

This happens all the time when juggling. To the point where we often comment when one's partner drops a club, "Thinking!" If I have to think about a trick I do so only while doing something simple, then I turn my brain off and let it happen a little bit later.

[braider.livejournal.com]

The problem I had with that was they said the cat "forgot" about it if they moved the barrier before the cat stepped over it. If the barrier was in front of the cat's front legs, maybe it had, say, *noticed* that they moved the barrier, and it therefore didn't need to lift its feet? Duh.

[johnjosmiller.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. All the time playing baseball.

The few times I got would get caught up in the emotion of the moment and really, really try to hit the ball really, really hard, I'd end up topping it, hitting down and dribbling the ball on the ground.

The times I DID hit the ball really, really hard (and in the thousands of times I've hit a ball, I've got some picture perfect memories: once hitting a ball into a distant lake past left field, once hitting a third baseman with a line drive so hard that I knocked him down -- fortunately he just managed to get his glove up and wasn't hurt, stuff like that)it was effortless.

In fact, there's a fairly common expression in baseball which goes along the lines of, "Don't think, Meat. You'll only hurt the team."

John

[haniaw.livejournal.com]

This happens to me a lot with phone numbers...if I just punch numbers without thinking then I'll get them right. I noticed this when there were still some dial phone around because I couldn't remember the number if I had to use one. I think this is also relevant for typing - if I look at the keyboard I spell things wrong.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Dancing. Back when I was a little kid, my mom's uncle owned a dance hall. We would go there for family gatherings. I learned things like the polka before I knew what they were called. Then the hall burned down (it was paneled with maple taken from my other great-uncle's farm; it went fast), and I didn't dance with a partner for a couple of decades. Then swing dancing came back in style, and I found I could dance just fine - as long as I didn't think about it. As soon as I started thinking "1..2..3..4" I'd lose it. I did best while staring at the ceiling and keeping my mind blank.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - I used to do a lot of Israeli folkdancing but had to quit for a long while because of problems with my back. I was lured back for an "oldies" marathon of dances from a few decades back, namely the decades where I'd been most active dancing. I could do about 75% of the dances, and many were dances that I hadn't done in at least 10 years if not more. If the music started playing and my feet didn't automatically move to it, then there was no hope in doing that particular dance even if someone described the steps.

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

Playing guitar is a lot harder when I have to think about what I'm doing...

[tshaile.livejournal.com]

For me it shows up most notably when I'm learning something new. I'll spend a few hours at it, take a break of a couple days, and when I return to it next time I often start out a step up from where I left off.