ABSTRACT
The study of human amnesia has profoundly affected theories of memory function. In particular, it provides dramatic evidence for major distinctions between different kinds of memory and, as many theorists suggest, for the existence of multiple memory systems. The primary datum offered by the study of amnesic subjects is the demonstration that while being severely impaired on some kinds of memory tests, amnesics perform normally on other kinds of memory tests. This dissociation provides a cogent underpinning to the distinction between implicit and explicit memory, a distinction that corresponds, broadly speaking, to the kinds of memory tasks amnesics can and cannot do.
