Extensive evidence indicates that the insular cortex (IC), also termed gustatory cortex, is critically involved in conditioned taste aversion and taste recognition memory. Although most studies of the involvement of the IC in memory have investigated taste, there is some evidence that the IC is involved in memory that is not based on taste. In this article, the authors present evidence that the IC is not uniquely dedicated to taste learning but plays a more general role in consolidating recognition memories. The novel finding of this study is that immediate posttraining infusions of the muscarinic cholinergic receptor antagonist scopolamine administered into the IC impaired object recognition memory, whereas scopolamine infused into the adjacent FPC did not impair memory. These findings provide compelling evidence that the IC is not engaged uniquely in the (associative) learning and recognition of taste, but that it plays a more general role in recognition memory. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)