PSYC10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 33: Free Recall, Temporal Lobe, Anterograde Amnesia
6 Jun 2018
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PSYC10003 – MIND, BRAIN, & BEHAVIOUR 1
COGNITION
Lecture 33 (Week 11 . 3): Lessons from Anterograde Amnesia: The Case of H.M.
H.M.: medial portion of both temporal lobes (hippocampui) removed to treat epilepsy. Resulted in dense
anterograde amnesia (both events / new semantic knowledge), & temporally graded retrograde amnesia
(11 years prior), but no effect on sensory, working, or non-declarative / implicit memory
• Semantic & episodic memories are stored in distributed networks of connections across the outer
cortex, but the medial temporal lobe structures are necessary for the retrieval of declarative memories
for an extended period of time (up to some years), but are eventually no longer required for retrieval
• Semantic knowledge is consolidated in the cortex more robustly, making them more resistant to
damage than episodic memories (if damage is to the cortex)
• In Clive Wearing’s case, it’s impossible to distinguish the effects of temporally graded retrograde
amnesia due to MTL damage, & retrograde amnesia due to cortex damage
• Mirror tracing task: assesses procedural learning – anterograde amnesiacs get better over time,
despite having no memory of previous experience with it. Comparable to healthy controls
• Graf, Squire, & Mandler (1984): compared memory performance for lists of words in anterograde
amnesics with non-amnesic controls: free recall, recognition, cued recall, & word-stem completion
• Impaired on free recall, recognition, & cued recall, but normal on word-stem completion
(repetition priming – complete each 3-letter cue with 1st word that comes to mind) Strong bias to
use studied items to complete the word stems. Demonstrated implicit memory retrieval processes
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
3): lessons from anterograde amnesia: the case of h. m. H. m. : medial portion of both temporal lobes (hippocampui) removed to treat epilepsy. Comparable to healthy controls: graf, squire, & mandler (1984): compared memory performance for lists of words in anterograde amnesics with non-amnesic controls: free recall, recognition, cued recall, & word-stem completion. Impaired on free recall, recognition, & cued recall, but normal on word-stem completion (repetition priming complete each 3-letter cue with 1st word that comes to mind) strong bias to use studied items to complete the word stems.
