Memory is the process or processes by which the brain enables us to represent experience and permits experience to shape us. Rather than a unitary capacity supported by a single set of processes, however, there are different forms of memory, supported by multiple, functionally, and anatomically distinct memory systems. The form of memory upon which we seem to depend most in the activities of everyday life and about which we can most readily reflect is declarative memory.

Declarative and Procedural Memory

There are various proposed taxonomies of memory, each offering a different account of the divisions among the memory systems of the brain. Most such accounts distinguish between declarative memory and procedural memory (Cohen and Squire, 1980; Cohen, 1984). Declarative memory supports the on-demand accumulation, storage, and retrieval of new data about facts and events—the information that we capture from our experiences through our representations of it...