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Sequence? What Sequence?: the human medial temporal lobe and sequence learning

Molecular Psychiatry volume 8, pages 896–897 (2003)Cite this article

Medial temporal lobe (MTL) dysfunction is well known to impair performance on conscious ‘explicit’ memory tasks, as when people recognize or recall familiar places, people, and events. In contrast, some unconscious ‘implicit’ types of learning and memory have been thought to be independent of the MTL, depending instead on neocortical and various subcortical structures. An implicit learning and memory task can be any perceptual, cognitive, or motor behavior, such as reading or typing, performed without one necessarily being aware of or consciously trying to use memory representations to influence performance with items that had been previously experienced. Implicit learning and memory effects are evidenced as differences (typically improvements) in performance for learned relative to new information.

Convergent findings, especially from studies of human amnesia, have led to explicit–implicit (also declarative–procedural) accounts of learning and memory. By this view, MTL involvement hinges on whether a task requires conscious awareness or intention to learn or remember.1 However, recent work in animals has begun to cast doubt on the idea that conscious awareness is the primary determinant of MTL involvement.2 The findings have instead motivated a ‘relational’ account hypothesizing that the MTL is critically involved in associative processes that bind multiple perceptual, cognitive, and motor aspects of events into a flexible memory trace.3 In contrast to earlier null findings,4,5,6,7,8 and favoring a relational view, some recent human neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies suggest that the MTL is necessary also for implicit learning of complex multievent associations.9,10,11,12,13

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Center for Memory and Brain, Boston University, USA

    H E Schendan, M M Searl, R J Melrose & C E Stern

  2. Department of Radiology, MGH-NMR Center, Harvard Medical School, USA

    C E Stern

  3. Department of Psychology, Tufts University, The Psychology Bldg., 490 Boston Ave., Medford, 02155, MA, USA

    H E Schendan

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  1. H E Schendan
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  2. M M Searl
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  3. R J Melrose
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  4. C E Stern
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Correspondence to H E Schendan.

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Schendan, H., Searl, M., Melrose, R. et al. Sequence? What Sequence?: the human medial temporal lobe and sequence learning. Mol Psychiatry 8, 896–897 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001424

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