Since Tulving proposed a distinction in memory between semantic and episodic memory, considerable effort has been directed towards understanding their similar and unique features. Of particular interest has been the extent to which semantic and episodic memory have a shared dependence on the hippocampus. In contrast to the definitive evidence for the link between hippocampus and episodic memory, the role of the hippocampus in semantic memory has been a topic of considerable debate. This debate stems, in part, from highly variable reports of new semantic memory learning in amnesia ranging from profound impairment to full preservation, and various degrees of deficit and ability in between. More recently, a number of significant advances in experimental methods have occurred, alongside new provocative data on the role of the hippocampus in semantic memory, making this an ideal moment to revisit this debate, to re-evaluate data, methods, and theories, and to synthesize new findings. In line with these advances, this review has two primary goals. First, we provide a historical lens with which to reevaluate and contextualize the literature on semantic memory and the hippocampus. The second goal of this review is to provide a synthesis of new findings on the role of the hippocampus and semantic memory. With the perspective of time and this critical review, we arrive at the interpretation that the hippocampus does indeed make necessary contributions to semantic memory. We argue that semantic memory, like episodic memory, is a highly flexible, (re)constructive, relational and multimodal system, and that there is value in developing methods and materials that fully capture this depth and richness to facilitate comparisons to episodic memory. Such efforts will be critical in addressing questions regarding the cognitive and neural (inter)dependencies among forms of memory, and the role that these forms of memory play in support of cognition more broadly. Such efforts also promise to advance our understanding of how words, concepts, and meaning, as well as episodes and events, are instantiated and maintained in memory and will yield new insights into our two most quintessentially human abilities: memory and language.

Spontaneous co-speech hand gestures provide a visuospatial representation of what is being communicated in spoken language. Although it is clear that gestures emerge from representations in memory for what is being communicated (De Ruiter, 1998; Wesp, Hesse, Keutmann, & Wheaton, 2001), the mechanism supporting the relationship between gesture and memory is unknown. Current theories of gesture production posit that action – supported by motor areas of the brain – is key in determining whether gestures are produced. We propose that when and how gestures are produced is determined in part by hippocampally-mediated declarative memory. We examined the speech and gesture of healthy older adults and of memory-impaired patients with hippocampal amnesia during four discourse tasks that required accessing episodes and information from the remote past. Consistent with previous reports of impoverished spoken language in patients with hippocampal amnesia, we predicted that these patients, who have difficulty generating multifaceted declarative memory representations, may in turn have impoverished gesture production. We found that patients gestured less overall relative to healthy comparison participants, and that this was particularly evident in tasks that may rely more heavily on declarative memory. Thus, gestures do not just emerge from the motor representation activated for speaking, but are also sensitive to the representation available in hippocampal declarative memory, suggesting a direct link between memory and gesture production.

Hippocampal functioning contributes to our ability to generate multifaceted, imagistic event representations. Patients with hippocampal damage produce event narratives that contain fewer details and fewer imagistic features. We hypothesized that impoverished memory representations would influence language at the word level, yielding words lower in imageability and concreteness. We tested this by examining language produced by patients with bilateral hippocampal damage and severe declarative memory impairment, and brain-damaged and healthy comparison groups. Participants described events from the real past, imagined past, imagined present, and imagined future. We analyzed the imageability and concreteness of words used. Patients with amnesia used words that were less imageable than those of comparison groups across time periods, even when accounting for the amount of episodic detail in narratives. Moreover, all participants used words that were relatively more imageable when discussing real past events than other time periods. Taken together, these findings suggest that the memory that we have for an event affects how we talk about that event, and this extends all the way to the individual words that we use.

Co-speech hand gesture facilitates learning and memory, yet the cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting this remain unclear. One possibility is that motor information in gesture may engage procedural memory representations. Alternatively, iconic information from gesture may contribute to declarative memory representations mediated by the hippocampus. To investigate these alternatives, we examined gesture's effects on word learning in patients with hippocampal damage and declarative memory impairment, with intact procedural memory, and in healthy and in brain-damaged comparison groups. Participants learned novel label-object pairings while producing gesture, observing gesture, or observing without gesture. After a delay, recall and object identification were assessed. Unsurprisingly, amnesic patients were unable to recall the labels at test. However, they correctly identified objects at above chance levels, but only if they produced a gesture at encoding. Comparison groups performed well above chance at both recall and object identification regardless of gesture. These findings suggest that gesture production may support word learning by engaging nondeclarative (procedural) memory.

During conversation, people integrate information from co-speech hand gestures with information in spoken language. For example, after hearing the sentence, "A piece of the log flew up and hit Carl in the face" while viewing a gesture directed at the nose, people tend to later report that the log hit Carl in the nose (information only in gesture) rather than in the face (information in speech). The cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the integration of gesture with speech are unclear. One possibility is that the hippocampus - known for its role in relational memory and information integration - is necessary for integrating gesture and speech. To test this possibility, we examined how patients with hippocampal amnesia and healthy and brain-damaged comparison participants express information from gesture in a narrative retelling task. Participants watched videos of an experimenter telling narratives that included hand gestures that contained supplementary information. Participants were asked to retell the narratives and their spoken retellings were assessed for the presence of information from gesture. For features that had been accompanied by supplementary gesture, patients with amnesia retold fewer of these features overall and fewer retellings that matched the speech from the narrative. Yet their retellings included features that contained information that had been present uniquely in gesture in amounts that were not reliably different from comparison groups. Thus, a functioning hippocampus is not necessary for gesture-speech integration over short timescales. Providing unique information in gesture may enhance communication for individuals with declarative memory impairment, possibly via non-declarative memory mechanisms.