Procedural /Habit memory

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before; but I have found when I did 3 months in retail, the procedures to work came almost automatically/ rapidly when working for awhile in the job.

If you automatically made ‘cues’ [for example, the icon symbols on PC, or locations in store] and then you were repeating the work / cues for months, you would consider this long term knowledge.

This would seem transferable skills eg shown a useful way to perform a task; and wanting to retain this if working in a similar role years later.

After 3 months, you would think the knowledge is well ingrained but it seemed to fade shortly after leaving the job.

Can anyone explain this?

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It’s like muscle memory. You remember by doing and practicing. However you also forget after a while of not rehearsing it but it will come back quickly after a refresher course.

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