Category learning and the memory systems debate

A substantial and growing body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience supports the concept of multiple memory systems (MMS). However, the existence of multiple systems has been questioned by theorists who instead propose that dissociations can be accounted for within a single memory system. We present convergent evidence from neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies of category learning in favor of the existence of MMS for category learning and declarative knowledge. Whereas single-system theorists have argued that their approach is more parsimonious because it only postulates a single form of memory representation, we show that the MMS approach is superior in its ability to account for a broad range of data from psychology and neuroscience.