ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief description of views about the different memory systems within the human brain and the modifications needed to accommodate the evidence of two minds. Traditionally, two forms of declarative memory are identified: semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory is the ability to store and remember factual information. It appears that the visual information available in iconic memory is converted into words before being stored in working memory. The chapter examines the different ways in which the individual hemispheres of split-brain patients cope with tests of visual memory. It discusses traditional views about long-term memory, which is held to be divided into declarative and non-declarative memory. Priming memory can perhaps be understood as the long-term equivalent of sensory memory. The ability of split-brain patients to store and retrieve memories using either hemisphere was one of the factors that led Sperry to conclude that such patients had a mind in each hemisphere.
