Learning Objectives

Attention is focused on the contents of all explicit memories. The experience of detailed recollection seems similar to the experience of vivid imagery. This chapter compares the cognitive processes and brain regions associated with memory to the cognitive processes and brain regions associated with attention, imagery, language, and emotion. Section 8.1 reviews the brain regions that have been associated with attention, which include sensory processing regions in addition to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex control regions. These regions are similar to the regions that have been associated with working memory and long-term memory (except for the additional dependence of long-term memory on the medial temporal lobe; see Chapters 3 and 6). In section 8.2 of this chapter, the brain regions associated with imagery are reviewed, which also include sensory processing regions, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the parietal cortex. The cognitive processes and brain processes associated with visual imagery are compared to the cognitive processes and brain processes associated with working memory and long-term memory. Section 8.3 details the regions of the brain associated with language processing, which include the left inferior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left posterior lateral temporal cortex. These regions are of relevance to memory studies, which often use words and meaningful objects as stimuli that have language/conceptual representations. The final section, 8.4, considers the brain regions that have been associated with emotion, which include the amygdala (a region just anterior to the hippocampus) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.