Knowledge Systems and Material-Specific Memory Deficits
The face of cognitive neuroscience has changed drastically since the mid-twentieth century. In the past, lesions were the only basis for inference regarding the functional neuroanatomy of normal cognition. Today the tools of cognitive neuroscience include various methods of neuroimaging, both structural and functional, in normal subjects.
Classifications of Memory Systems
The structure of knowledge representation in the brain is elucidated by the studies of specific dissociations of knowledge loss in brain disease. The question whether there is one memory store or several is of the foremost interest. Studies of amnesias are particularly illuminating in this respect. In most amnesic syndromes, skills are better preserved than facts. Within the declarative domain, context-free information is usually better preserved than context-dependent information. Generic information is better preserved than singular information. Generally, the patient's ability to give a conscious account of previously acquired knowledge is more likely to be impaired than the ability to benefit from this knowledge in various behavioral situations. These observations have been interpreted to indicate the neuropsychological reality of the distinctions between procedural knowledge (skills) and declarative knowledge (facts) (Cohen and Squire, 1980), semantic memory (for general facts) and episodic memory (for personal facts) (Tulving, 1983; Kinsbourne and Wood, 1975), generic knowledge (referring to large classes of equivalent objects) and singular knowledge (referring to unique entities), and explicit knowledge (demonstrated through conscious reports) and implicit knowledge (demonstrated through behavioral gains) (Schacter, 1987; Tulving and Schacter, 1990).
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