Neuropsychology of Memory Flashcards
What is affected in amnesia?
Ability to take in new information is severely (and usually permanently) disabled
What may not be affected by amnesia?
Intelligence
Attentional span
Personality
May all remain unaffected
What were the initials of the American man who hit his had and suffered intractable epilepsy, followed by surgery which left him with anterograde amnesia?
HM
Which lobes were removed from HM?
Hippocampus & medial temporal lobes
What conclusions were drawn about memory and the brain from HM?
That the hippocampus & temporal lobes are responsible for episodic memory
BUT
do not affect the phonological store and visual-spatial sketchpad in short term memory
Damage to which lobe usually causes amnesia?
Damage to the medial temporal lobe
Where is the hippocampus located?
Deep in the medial temporal lobes.
What is amnesia relating to loss of memory of time after a brain injury called?
Anterograde amnesia
What is amnesia relating to loss of memory of a time period before a brain injury called?
Retrograde amnesia
Memories closet to a brain injury are more vulnerable to loss than those which occurred further away. What is this called?
The temporal gradient
What is procedural memory?
Memory of how to perform actions - is innate memory (e.g. how to ride a bike)
Which part of the brain is responsible for innate memory?
Basal ganglia (& cerebellum)
Which illness can affect the basal ganglia and therefore procedural memories?
Huntington’s disease
What types of memory are the following?
- Knowing how to ride a bike
- Knowing what a bike is
- Knowing what age you learn to ride a bike
- Procedural
- Semantic
- Episodic
What did HM’s experiments prove about procedural memory?
That amnesiacs with damage to temporal lobes could still learn new procedural skills (mirror experiments)
Therefore - procedural memory is INDEPENDENT to Declarative (episodic & semantic memory)
How does Huntington’s disease evidence separate independent procedural memory?
Ps with Huntington’s had impaired procedural memory - whereas other Ps without Huntington’s but things like Alzheimers were unaffected.
Conclusion = procedural memory is separate via basal ganglia
What are the two divisions of long term memory?
Declarative (Conscious)
Implicit (Not conscious)
What are the two types of declarative memory?
Episodic (personal memories - what, where, when(
Semantic (facts & knowledge - no knowledge about where the information was acquired)
What are the two types of implicit memory?
Priming
Procedural
What did scientists (Warrington) prove about priming in amnesia tasks?
That Ps with amnesia could still learning how to prime (eg. degrading pictures)
What did Squire (wrongly) postulate about declarative memories?
That episodic and semantic memories depend on the medial temporal lobes for acquisition and short-term retention.
He therefore postulated that if episodic memory was poor (due to amnesia) that semantic memory would always be poor as well
How was Squire proved wrong?
Some amnesiacs could learn new semantic (word) memories (via implicit learning) even though their episodic memory was impaired.
Therefore they could learn unconsciously new semantic words, but not explicitly.
What do we now conclude about anterograde amnesia?
That episodic memory is always impaired BUT there is evidence that there can be some new semantic learning in some situations.
All declarative memories depend on which part of the brain for their acquisition and short-term storage?
What happens to these memories over time?
Medial temporal lobes
Over time = become consolidated to other brain regions - e.g. cerebral cortex
How is declarative memory affected in retrograde amnesia?
Episodic memory can be impaired but semantic knowledge learned a long time ago remains okay
What is semantic dementia?
Dementia which affects the semantic memory stores of the brain - means Ps have poor knowledge of word meaning / concepts, get words muddled and can include forgetting what sounds / sights mean
Which part of the brain is semantic knowledge associated with?
The lateral temporal cortex (LHS of brain)
What role does the frontal lobe play in memory?
Is responsible for attentional control - so affects what Ps pay attention to, and is also utilised in recalling specific information from memories in the brain. Is a control process of memory.
What does a frontal lobe impairment present as clinically?
Confabulation
What is confabulation?
Erroneous memories which are presented as the truth - seems like the P is lying / making things up, when they genuinely believe they are recalling the truth
