The evidence, reviewed in chapter 4, strongly suggests that PTO association neocortex stores many aspects of well-established semantic memory, and probably also the semantic components of episodic memory. In this chapter, the role in complex memory of the frontal association neocortex is considered. Although many issues remain unresolved and much research needs to be done, the role in memory of the frontal cortex is perhaps best approached by comparing it with the role in memory of PTO association cortex and of the structures damaged in organic amnesics. First, both PTO and frontal association cortex receive inputs of sensory information that has already undergone some processing, and the frontal region projects to areas that more directly control motor output. If they have broadly similar roles in memory, then one would expect the frontal cortex to be involved in storing certain kinds of well-established information. One possibility is that it may store action plans and ‘scripts’ that indicate what should be done in different kinds of situations, such as meeting friends or going to a restaurant. Strong evidence for a frontal cortex role in these kinds of storage does not yet exist. The second comparison is with the structures involved in organic amnesia. Warrington and Weiskrantz (1982) have argued that organic amnesia is caused by lesions that disconnect the frontal cortex from PTO association cortex. It is not the links across the neocortex that are severed, however, but those that connect frontal and PTO cortex via the limbic system and diencephalic structures. The effect of this disconnection is that amnesics cannot either store or retrieve all those kinds of information that require elaborative processing and planning during encoding.