Brain responses of explicit and implicit memory: An event-related potential study.

Implicit memory is acquired by an unintentional or unconscious learning. Recognition memory involves either automatic knowing or consciously controlled remembering. We provided an event-related potential paradigm capable of differentiating memory for the explicitly learned, implicitly learned and unstudied materials. In the explicit memory, we obtained both frontal (controlled retrieval) and parietal (recollection) old/new effects. In the implicit memory, we found persistent occipitotemporal activation (visual priming) and late attenuation in the temporoparietooccipital (repetition suppression). Event-related potential provides an insight into the dissociable mechanism of memory function that supports the dual process model with an enhanced temporal resolution on the dynamic process of both explicit perceptual learning and implicit perceptual priming.