The hippocampus (HC) is a bilateral brain structure critical for the encoding, storage, and retrieval of specific, contextual memories. Functionally distinct subregions in the HC support (1) the orthogonalization of highly similar inputs and (2) the extraction of regular commonalities. Recent evidence highlights how specificity of memories are impacted by similarities in the consolidated conceptual knowledge. Our lab investigates the HC's role in establishing memory specificity and operating on conceptual knowledge in adulthood, as well as across the lifespan.