Sometimes the different identities are not even aware of the existence of the other identities. Explicit memories are specific memories, such as where you went last night or recall for a list of study words. Implicit memories do not have any specific recollected content like explicit memories but contain information that can influence behavior without entering conscious awareness. Implicit memory is often described as memory without any awareness of the memory. Because implicit memory does not contain any verbalizable content, it must be examined indirectly.
Psychologists study implicit memory through priming.
Suppose you are asked to rate a list of words such as snow, chemical, optimum , in terms of how well you can imagine them. Next, you are given a word stem or beginning, app- . It is very likely that the first word that you thought of was appendix , one of the list words, instead of the many other words that begin with app- , including the very common word, apple. The list word primed the word completion. Psychologists use examples such as these to demonstrate implicit memory.