Learning and Long‐Term Memory

Long-term memory is usually divided into different types. One important division is between an explicit form of long-term memory for information readers can bring to mind and an implicit form of long-term memory involving perceptual-motor skills. Each of these also has subtypes: Explicit memory includes semantic memory for facts and episodic memory for personal events, and implicit memory includes a range of skills such as conditioning and priming. Initially it was thought that implicit memory was present from birth, while explicit memory emerged later due to the immaturity of the medial temporal lobe. The multisystem view of memory has been a dominant framework for those investigating the cognitive neuroscience of memory development. While there has been great debate about the development of explicit memory, there has been much more agreement about the development of implicit memory.