Utilizing three key strategies, the book achieves this synthesis by first taking an interdisciplinary approach, integrating theories and research from the fields of animal learning, human memory, and neuroscience. Next, Eichenbaum incorporates animal and human research literature throughout to give the book a strong comparative dimension. Finally, Eichenbaum organizes the text around multiple memory systems, moving from simple to more complex forms of learning and memory. Complemented by a comprehensive art program featuring nearly 175 drawings and photos, Learning & Memory is a path-breaking text, thoroughly integrating neuroscience and behavioral research to clearly convey the contemporary science of the mind.

This cutting-edge book offers a theoretical account of the evolution of multiple memory systems of the brain. The authors conceptualize these memory systems from both behavioural and neurobiological perspectives, guided by three related principles. First, that our understanding of a wide range of memory phenomena can be advanced by breaking down memory into multiple forms with different operating characteristics. Second, that different forms of memory representation are supported by distinct brain pathways with circuitry and neural coding properties. Third, that the contributions of different brain systems can be compared and contrasted by distinguishing between dedicated (or specific) and elaborate (or general) memory systems. A primary goal of this work is to relate the neurobiological properties of dedicated and elaborate systems to their neuropsychological counterparts, and in so doing, account for the phenomenology of memory, from conditioning to conscious recollection.