The idea that the frontal lobes are implicated in memory has a long and controversial history (Luria, 1980; Teuber, 1964). Damage to the frontal lobes can produce memory impairment and sometimes even severe memory loss, but it has proved difficult to specify the nature of the disorder. The scholarly consensus now holds that frontal-lobe damage does not lead to memory deficits in consolidation, storage, and retention of newly acquired information (Petrides, 2000; Moscovitch and Winocur, 2002). Such disorders, which in their most extreme form lead to a profound global amnesia, are associated with damage to the medial temporal lobes, particularly the hippocampus and related structures, and to midline thalamic nuclei (Milner, 1966).

Working-With-Memory

Memory loss following frontal-lobe lesions, on the other hand, involves organizational or strategic aspects of memory that are necessary for devising strategies for encoding, for guiding search at retrieval, for monitoring and...