Theories and Concepts

This chapter provides an overview of the existing theories on declarative memory and the hippocampal complex. In particular, theories/models of hippocampal functioning and declarative memory (i.e., the Standard Model of Consolidation, the Spatial Map Theory, the Relational Theory, the Multiple Trace Theory, the Dual-Process Theory, and the Perceptual-Mnemonic Feature Conjunction Model) were combined into a comprehensive unified framework. It is shown that these theories cannot fully explain the findings from empirical studies that examine the role of the medial temporal lobe in declarative memory. Therefore, this chapter tries to integrate the findings reported in the literature into a comprehensive unified framework of recognition and recall. This model not only considers long-term memory and the medial temporal lobe but also its relations with the prefrontal cortex and working memory.