When a person is affected by amnesia (I’ve only ever seen it portrayed in movies) How are they still able to speak English properly?
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Declarative memories (where you can verbally say “I remember when…”) are stored differently from procedural memories. There are people who lose the ability to encode new declarative memories as a result of certain types of brain damage, but they can learn new skills. Mirror drawing is the example I remember from my cognitive psych class — drawing backwards in a mirror is difficult at first, but then people gradually get better. People with a particular type of amnesia will improve at mirror drawing, but they won’t remember having practiced before if asked. Speaking English, walking, getting dressed, etc. are all procedural memories.
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