Why do we never lose certain skills we have learned, even if we haven’t practiced them for a long time. like for example riding a bicycle, and we lose some, like a new language we learned 10 years ago but can’t remember anything about it now?

Question

Why do we never lose certain skills we have learned, even if we haven’t practiced them for a long time. like for example riding a bicycle, and we lose some, like a new language we learned 10 years ago but can’t remember anything about it now?

In: 5857

Answer 1

Fact type memories (like someone’s birthday) and skill type memories (like how to walk) are stored in different ways in different parts of the brain. Fact type memories generally need to be updated, overwritten, rewritten, etc so they are generally more likely to decay. Skill memories that don’t change much can be stored in the far more permanent way as it’s much less likely you’ll need to relearn how to walk when compared to a birthday.

Even then, the things you “forget” are mostly thought to be still there, you just can’t access them as easily.