You might forget which pants you wore yesterday or whether you have plans today. But put that same person on a bike — if they once knew how to ride, balance and steering usually come back almost instantly, even after years or decades away.
The three main kinds of long-term memory
Andrew Budson, a professor of neurology at Boston University and co-author of the book “Why We Forget and How to Remember Better,” divides long-term memory into three types — each processed, stored, and retrieved by different brain circuits.
- Semantic memory — knowledge about facts and concepts: how a toaster works, what a screwdriver is for, the difference between a cat and a dog.
- Episodic memory — memories tied to specific events in your life, like your first kiss or last night’s dinner.
- Procedural (skill) memory — abilities and actions that become automatic: playing guitar, touch typing, or riding a bike. What people call “muscle memory” is a subtype of procedural memory.
Why skills stick better
Riding a bike is a motor skill that depends on deep brain structures like the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, Budson explains. These areas are important, and they work differently from the regions that support episodic memory.
Procedural memories become embedded in neural pathways but retain some flexibility: one bike is different from another — riding a mountain bike isn’t the same as a calm city ride on a single-speed — yet you can quickly recover and adapt the basic movements.
What really sets procedural memory apart is that it relies on structures that tend to be more resistant to change over time, Budson says. That’s why, for example, someone who learned touch typing can still type later on, although they may need a bit of time to adjust to a new keyboard.
Why scientists can’t directly study the link between bike riding and memory
Despite the popular saying, relatively few studies directly examine why we retain the memory of how to ride a bike. Researchers have published work on the benefits of exercise bikes or on links between cycling and improved memory overall, but few studies treat riding itself as an example of procedural memory.
There are a few reasons for that. First, it’s difficult to do detailed brain scanning while a person actually rides a bike. Second, Elizabeth Kensinger, a professor of psychology at Boston College and Budson’s co-author, says self-reported “skill level” in bike riding can be unreliable and can distort results.
For that reason, experiments on procedural memory often focus on other controlled skills: for example, researchers ask participants to draw shapes while looking at their hands in a mirror. At first that task is hard, but after repetitions participants show significant improvement — and that approach gives researchers control over conditions and variables.
Repetition builds lasting skills
A single performance isn’t enough: procedural memory requires repetition that strengthens the neural pathways. “Learning a second or third time is much faster than the first time,” Kensinger says. There’s a kind of priming effect that speeds recovery of a skill after a break.
“Our procedural memories degrade, but more slowly than episodic memories,” Budson explains. So practice helps a skill stay active and return more quickly after a long pause.
The good news is we can acquire these skills throughout life. Kensinger says older adults can master complex motor tasks — for example, using a wheelchair with locking mechanisms or other assistive devices. The same applies to walkers, computers, or tablets — they just require time and patience.
Who this helps
The ability to automate behavior had evolutionary value: fleeing a predator or searching for food didn’t require constant conscious attention. So the next time you speed off on a bike and can’t remember where you’re heading, remember your procedural memory — it’s doing the work for you.
Based on material from Popular Science
Photo: Unsplash
