During a typical paired-associates task, participants learn a number of word pairs, such as monosyllabic nouns, prior to their time in the scanner. Once in the scanner, prior to fMRI acquisition, participants are asked to learn those word pairs again along with a number of new word pairs. Participants are shown the first member of the pair and are asked to verbalize the second member of the pair. Learning/recall trials are generally repeated until participants have shown some level of mastery (e.g., learning 10 of 16 pairs; Schweinsburg, McQueeny, Nagel, Eyler, & Tapert, 2010). Next, during fMRI acquisition, participants are shown all learned pairs again, along with a new set of pairs in order to investigate which brain regions are involved in learning old versus new information. In adults, this task typically activates a number of established brain regions. In response to old words relative to fixation, activity is observed in the left superior parietal lobule, left middle occipital gyrus, right cuneus, right inferior occipital gyrus, right and left putamen and lateral globus pallidus. In response to new words relative
