declarative memory
the ability to retain information about facts or events over a significant period of time and to consciously recall such declarative knowledge, typically in response to a specific request to remember. It is one of two major divisions in memory proposed in 1980 by U.S. neuroscientist and biological psychologist Larry R. Squire (1941– ), and it generally is divided into two subtypes defined by Endel Tulving: episodic memory and semantic memory. Declarative memory depends on the integrity of a set of highly interconnected structures in the medial temporal lobe and adjacent cortical areas—specifically, the hippocampus, dentate gyrus, subiculum, perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex, and the parahippocampal gyrus. Both emotion and sleep are known to facilitate declarative memory, and abundant evidence indicates that exposure to acute stress enhances declarative
memory consolidation. This form of memory is selectively impaired in amnesia and is known as explicit memory in other theoretical classifications. Compare nondeclarative memory.