Procedural memory

So far I have engaged with declarative long term memory and the discussion dwelt on the nature and composition of semantic and episodic memory systems in relation to how the Quran text might be processed for long term recall. In this section I will investigate another kind of long term memory i.e., non-declarative memory. I will explore if the Quran

memorizers, in some way, might draw on procedural/skilled memory in committing and remembering the Quran to memory.

‘Procedural memory’ is a term used to refer to how people perform different actions such as riding a bicycle, typing on a computer keyboard, playing a musical instrument, playing a game, and speaking their mother tongue. All these are skilled activities the performance of which lies outside conscious recollection. Can it be the case that the more the Quran memorizers practise, and the more they become skilled at reciting the text, the more proceduralized their knowledge becomes?

Procedural memory accommodates a number of subsystems, like motor learning, simple conditioning, and associative learning. What distinguishes procedural memory from semantic memory, on the one hand, and episodic memory, on the other, is not only the nature of acquisition, representation, and expression of knowledge but also the conscious awareness of the knowledge by the individual. According to Schacter and Tulving (1994), the procedural memory system is different from other memory systems in term of final output. They argue:

The […] other major systems are concerned with cognition. That is, the final productions of all these systems can be, and frequently are, contemplated by the individual introspectively, in conscious awareness. Any conversion of such a product of memory into overt behaviour, even symbolic behaviour such as speech or writing, represents an optional postretrieval phenomenon, characterized by considerable flexibility regarding the behavioural expression. Such an expression is absent in the procedural form of memory (p. 27).

Procedural memory is performance-based and efficiency at any given task is gradually enhanced through repeated trials. The repeated attempts at executing a task lead to habit learning and automatization in that the learner is not aware of what they are doing and how it was learnt in the first place (Lee 2004, p. 44). Thus the more a skill becomes automated, the

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less it entails conscious cognitive load, i.e. people take less time and/or effort to perform the task. The fact that procedural memory is also called nondeclarative refers to people’s

unconscious mastery of a task without the need to articulate or verbalize it (Squire 1994). According to Squire and Kandel (1999, p. 24), “non-declarative memory typically involves knowledge that is reflexive rather than reflective in nature”. Although procedural memories become nonconscious and automatic with practice, they start as declarative knowledge. So, as a skill develops over time it takes a path from conscious declarative knowledge to

unconscious proceduralized knowledge (Ullman 2004).

Nearly half a century ago, Fitts (1964; Fitts & Posner 1967) proposed a powerful account of skill acquisition. According to him, skills are acquired in three phases: cognitive, associative, and autonomous. The cognitive phase involves deliberate cognitive processes and lasts for a few days. In the associative phase performance strategies are refined. This phase may last for days or months. In the autonomous stage performance is less subject to cognitive control and concurrent outside interference. As a result the less the cognitive involvement, the less processing required. This last phase is marked by efficiency and speed, and the performance is less vulnerable to errors.

Based on Fitts’ work, Anderson (1983) proposed a model of acquisition of cognitive skills. He describes three phases of skill acquisition (corresponding with Fitts’ three phases), that is, declarative (characterized by using general-purpose problem solving strategies), knowledge compilation, and procedural. According to Anderson, knowledge conversion from declarative to procedural stage happens during knowledge compilation. VanLehn (1996) also described three stages of cognitive skill acquisition: early, intermediate, and late. Although these models of skill learning may vary in specific details, there is an agreement on the three stages of learning. Proctor and Dutta’s (1995) definition of skill captures the essence of core

characteristic of a skill as envisioned in different models of skill acquisition: “Skill is goal- directed, well-organized behaviour that is acquired through practice and performed with economy of effort (p. 18).

A question pertinent to the present study is: can one have skilled memory for text recitation? In other words, can one develop memory for text similar to a person’s skill in driving a car? This entails that an individual, over repeated trials/attempts at memorizing a text, would

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gradually learn connections between different parts of text to achieve a coordinated performance/recital in a manner similar to that of a driver’s learning how to drive a car. A lot of procedural memory is about motor skillsor neuromuscular memory. Muscles of the body can be so trained that they move in a coordinated way: repeated practice results in reinforcement and automatization of the muscle memory. Given that the Quran memorizers practise and rehearse the text regularly, is it possible that part of their recall capacity is a result of repetitive movement of body muscles, the vocal articulators?

It can be argued that Quran memorization might be a skill in the sense that the text has been rehearsed so often that it is available as proceduralized knowledge. The memorizers may start memorization as a conscious process but the more they repeat the less conscious they are of what they are doing, resulting in the automatization of recall.