Today I started my classes at college again ,and for a week I’ve been trying to remember my password to the school network so I can use the computers.
So wasn’t I suprised that despite not being able to remember it mere minutes before sitting down at the computer, when I get to the login prompt, it takes a single attempt to do it perfectly.
And despite this, if you asked me my password, I’d have a hard time telling you even now.
I’m the same way with my library card number(for logging into their system to check my holds and such).
I’ve noticed this too! though I can’t give an authoritative explanation. I figure it’s the same sort of memory that lets a pianist play a complicated piece without consciously thinking about what the notes are.
I actually choose my passwords based on their “shape” rather than any defined string of letters or numbers. For example, start at the “6” key. Hold down SHIFT and follow the diagonal line down and to the right, then let go of SHIFT and go down and to the left from “6”. You get ^YHN6tfc which is a pretty strong password and meets most system password criteria. When your password expires, just move over to the “7” key and get &UJM7ygv. You don’t need to know your password at all – just where it starts.
Just to be clear, this obviously this doesn’t have anything to do with memory stored in the actual muscles. It’s just a physical act that your brain knows but can’t articulate easily in words. It’s very common in most athletics, especially things like gymnastics, dance and martial arts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to explain a martial arts technique and had to go through it slowly to even identify what the movements are.
A friend had a phone with two rows of 5 numbers instead of the conventional arrangement. Anyone who tried to use it had to take an extra minute to dial and some people would have to look at a regular phone before they could remember a number. I have seen people who poke their finger in the air at an invisible keyboard when trying to remember a number. So I would say for most people the the pattern they type is a large part of any number that is memorized.
I don’t think it’s muscle memory as much as a memory that is tied to a situation and therefore you need to be in that situation (or imagining it) for the memory to surface. I occasionally have to remember some of my boss’ passwords and I almost invariably have to sit at his keyboard to remember them.
I always believed it was muscle memory; I tend to do this with phone numbers too. I once picked up the phone meaning to call someone, and my fingers completely took their own path and dialed I didn’t recognize at first. I sat there staring at the number on the display, trying to figure out 1) why I’d dialed it and 2) why it was so familiar, when I realized it was an ex-boyfriend’s number :eek: Had you asked me to recite his number, I’m confident I couldn’t have done it.
It also comes in handy, as hinted at, in playing the guitar, and I definitely relied on it when playing the flute; the less I “thought” about what I was playing, and let the mythical muscle memory do its thing, the better I did.
One of my piano instructors called it “motor memory.” She related it to the way you never forget to ride a bike. I can play Beethoven’s Pathetique from beginning to end. But if I get tripped up in the middle (i.e., my motor memory slips) I have to start over. It’s in my HANDS, but not in my BRAIN.
The teacher used to scold me for this…wanted me to have the music memorized intellectually, not physically. She was right. In the end, this means that I can play a few lines or pages of certain pieces, but then my hands fail me and I can’t complete them without the music. And sometimes, looking at the score again is like looking at it for the first time…it doesn’t LOOK like what my hands know.
Hm…does anyone else have this with writing things out by hand, as well? I ‘suffer’ from this all the time (trying to remember passwords, etc), and occasionally need to write something out by hand (eg, my SSN) before I can remember it.
<anecdotal>I’ve trained in tae kwon do for eight years, and just about a month ago switched to a different one. The first pattern in TKD is extremely similar to the first kata in my new style. The other day in karate class, 3 different times, I started doing the proper kata, and somehow ended up switching midway to the older, more familiar TKD pattern. Definitely a huge PITA…</anecdotal>
With regard to the whole “motor memory” thing, it occurs to me that rather than being a different kind of memory, it could have something to do with the fact that an action (such as pressing a key) can trigger a memory. So maybe typing the first couple keys reminds you of the rest of them. I’m not an expert on memory, but I assume this is because memories have some sort of structure associating certain ones with each other. So doing something makes you remember the last time you did it, which can trigger a memory of what you did immediately afterward.
This doesn’t just hold for physical movements. For instance, I have 115 digits of pi memorized (don’t ask why), and I can recite them so quickly that I can sometimes get through all of them in a single breath. Yet if you ask me to start in the middle, or force me to say them very slowly, I have a lot more trouble. I assume this is because saying each group of a few numbers reminds me what the next one is. It even works if I just think them silently to myself, so it’s not related to the activity of my muscles.
Another similar phenomenon is that even though I’m bilingual, I only remember certain things in one language and not the other. The other day a store clerk asked for my ZIP code, and I couldn’t say it in English. Apparently I’d memorized my ZIP code as a sound in Japanese, since this particular number scans better in Japanese than English. Also I only remember the multiplication table in Japanese.
I don’t know if this is common, but I’m like this with the alphabet. When trying to remember which of two letters is first, I sometimes have to go back and sing the song from the beginning of a musical phrase in the song(A, H, Q, or W), to get the order.
Maybe I’m just stupid.
I had an interesting experience with this. I was in Paris and I forgot my ATM number. The keypad on this particular ATM was completely discombobulated compared to what I was used to and I realized that I never mentally “memorized” the number, I just let my fingers do the magic. I found a more normal looking ATM and “remembered” it right away
This reminds me of a weird experience that happened to me some time ago when I had to write a business letter in French. Although French is my mother tongue, I do 99.9% of my written business communication in English. So when I was typing my French letter, I went to type “de”, my mind thought the letters “d” and “e” and where they were on the keyboard, but when I looked on the screen, I saw I had typed “the”
*wtf?? *
I even tried a number of times being aware of this. I thought I was typing “de”, and it was coming out “the”. I had to physically watch my fingers as I typed very slowly, for the first few times. It was almost like someone had taken over my fingers by remote control…
On a tangential point, I often amuse myself by trying to type my password / debit card PIN without thinking of the characters or keypad pattern, as though I were trying to avoid “telepathic” scanning.
Probably comes from being too much of a Babylon 5 fan…
I am dyslexic, with some aphasia when I am extremely tired or ill, and learned french in canada as a result of wanting to play with the local kids. I can speak french, or english but I can’t translate between the languages without a lot of thought, and I have smatterings of spanish, italian, german, russian and japanese. When I get aphasic, i cant speak in a single language, but my brain picks words at random from my various languages to ‘fill in the blanks’ in predominately english conversation. Luckily mrAru is also vaguely multilingual and very patient, so sometimes listening to us when I am very tired or ill is somewhat existential. <not to mention very frustrating to me, one of my ‘horrors’ is stroking out and getting headbound.>
I have 300 memorized and I experience the same thing. I can fly through them without a second thought; in fact, a “second thought” would mess me up. People sometimes ask me to write it all out and I just can’t do it.
