Although the role of the hippocampus in spatial cognition is well accepted, it is unclear whether its involvement is restricted to the mnemonic domain or also extends to perception. We used fMRI to scan neurologically healthy participants during a scene oddity judgment task that placed no explicit demand on long-term memory. Crucially, a surprise recognition test was administered after scanning so that each trial could be categorized not only according to oddity accuracy but also according to subsequent memory. Univariate analyses showed significant hippocampal activity in association with correct oddity judgment, whereas greater parahippocampal place area (PPA) activity was observed during incorrect oddity trials, both irrespective of subsequent recognition performance. Consistent with this, multivariate pattern analyses revealed that a linear support vector machine was able to distinguish correct from incorrect oddity trials on the basis of activity in voxels within the hippocampus or PPA. Although no significant regions of activity were identified by univariate analyses in association with memory performance, a classifier was able to predict subsequent memory using voxels in either the hippocampus or PPA. Our findings are consistent with the idea that the hippocampus is important for processes beyond long-term declarative memory and that this structure may also play a role in complex spatial perception.

There has been considerable debate surrounding the functions of the medial temporal lobe (MTL). Although this region has been traditionally thought to subserve long-term declarative memory only, recent evidence suggests a role in short-term working memory and even higher order perception. To investigate this issue, functional neuroimaging was used to investigate the involvement of the MTL in spatial scene perception and working memory. Healthy participants were scanned during a working memory task incorporating two factors of working memory (high vs. low demand) and spatial processing (complex vs. simple). It was found that an increase in spatial processing demand produced significantly greater activity in the posterior hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex irrespective of whether working memory demand was high or low. In contrast, there was no region within the MTL that increased significantly in activity during both the complex and the simple spatial processing conditions when working memory demand was increased. There was, however, a significant interaction effect between spatial processing and working memory in the right posterior hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex bilaterally: An increase in working memory demand produced a significant increase in activity in these areas during the complex, but not simple, spatial processing conditions. These findings suggest that although there may be a role for the MTL in both stimulus processing and working memory, increasing the latter does not necessarily increase posterior MTL involvement. We suggest that these structures may play a critical role in processing complex spatial representations, which, in turn, may form the basis of short- and long-term mnemonic processes.