PSYC 2560 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Henry Molaison, Temporal Lobe, Retrograde Amnesia
1 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Memory is keeping information in and retrieving it later. Epileptic individual whose medial temporal lobes were removed. He developed mild retrograde amnesia (could not recall what occurred several years before surgery) Severe anterograde amnesia (could not form new memories) Any form of distraction would result in henry forgetting who he was. Block-tapping memory-span test: blocks are tapped in a specific order to determine if individual has short term spatial memory. Hippocampi do not mediate short term memory. Mirror drawing task: using visual guide to coordinate motor response (tracing a shape as seen in a mirror while view of pencil/paper blocked). Rotary pursuit task: individual tries to keep a stylus on a target as it rotates on a disc. Short term and long term memory are separate entities with different biological substrates. Some memories may exist but cannot be recalled. Semantic memory (general information) can function normally. Episodic memory (experienced events) may not be preserved.
