The Interaction Between Declarative Memory And Procedural Memory In Synchronous Processing

Early research suggested that the two memory systems,declarative memory and procedural memory,had separate channels for processing information and did not interfere with each other.In the last two decades,however,research has demonstrated that the two memory systems are not completely separate mechanisms and that the two memory performances interact with each other.Previous studies have observed the interaction of the two memory systems under conditions of alternating learning of declarative and procedural knowledge,and such studies have resulted in some separation of the two learning processes in terms of time course.The present study used a high temporal resolution event-related potential technique to observe the neural activity characteristics of the brain over time processes during separate and simultaneous learning of declarative and procedural knowledge.There were three experimental tasks in this study,namely a Chinese character memory task(single task),a sequence reaction time task(single task),and a dual task combining Chinese character memory and sequence learning.A total of 27undergraduates(14 males and 13 females)were recruited for the whole experiment,and the subjects were asked to respond to the target stimuli appearing on the screen with corresponding finger key presses and to remember the Chinese characters that appeared.A two-way(task type,time)mixed design was used to observe changes and differences in the behavior performance and neural activity characteristics of the subjects when comparing a single task of Chinese character memory,a single task of sequence learning and a dual task combining both tasks.The results showed that,compared to the single task of Chinese character memory,there was no difference in the effectiveness of Chinese character memory in the dual task paradigm compared to the single task in the early period,and no difference in the effectiveness of sequence knowledge in the sequence learning,although the sequence response time was longer in the dual task than in the single task of sequence learning.Based on the EEG results when processing the two types of knowledge simultaneously,it was found that the dual task with the addition of declarative knowledge elicited a stronger N1 component compared to the sequence learning single task,and there was no significant change in the N1 component over time for the two tasks;the mean amplitude of N2 component elicited by the dual task and the two single tasks did not differ and did not change significantly over the time course;the mean amplitude of P3 component amplitude in the three task conditions decreased with the time There was no significant difference in the amplitude of the P3 component between the three task conditions;the dual task elicited a stronger P3 component than the single task;the early stage of learning elicited a stronger P3component;the single and dual tasks did not differ in the the mean amplitude of N400component;and the neural oscillations in the theta band evoked by the three task conditions did not differ significantly.In summary,the following conclusions can be drawn from the present study:(1)When the declarative and procedural memory systems are processed simultaneously,the expression of procedural knowledge is inhibited,but the acquisition of procedural knowledge is not affected;people adjust their motor behavior to accommodate the motor interference brought by the learning of declarative knowledge;(2)When the declarative and procedural memory systems are processed simultaneously,the learning process of declarative knowledge slows down,and the early stage of declarative learning is influenced more by procedural knowledge;(3)As visual stimulus features become declarative information,simultaneous processing of both types of knowledge leads to stronger activation of the brain during early discrimination of visual targets compared to independent processing of procedural knowledge;(4)Compared to independent processing of declarative knowledge,simultaneous processing of both types of knowledge takes up more attention resources and requires more attention resources in the early stage.The present study adds to previous research on the interaction mechanisms between the declarative and procedural memory systems during simultaneous processing,which can provide some basic theories for the field of memory learning and the field of physical education.