Neuropsychology of memory

Question 1

Features of amnesic syndrome

Answer 1

The impairment in the ability to take in new information.

Visuospatial and phonological stores are intact.

Intelligence, attention span and personality unaffected.

Damage to the medial temporal lobe and anatomically associated areas.

Question 2

Declarative memory

Answer 2

Theorised by Tulving.

Type of long term memory that requires conscious effort to retrieve.

Divided into:
Episodic: Personal events and autobiographical memories.

Semantic: Facts, concepts.

Question 3

Declarative memory theory

Answer 3

Scquire
- All declarative memories depend on the medial and temporal lobes for requisition and short-term retention.

Argues that both semantic and episodic memories are poor in those with anterograde amnesia.

Question 4

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 4

Impairment in the ability to learn new information, after brain injury.
- Episodic memory is severely impaired

Question 5

Episodic memory and anterograde amnesia

Answer 5

It is severely impaired
- Damage to medial temporal lobes = poor LTM using Declarative memory theory

Evidence:
Corkin + H.M [who had bilateral removal of medial-temporal lobe]
- H.M poor at learning new information, no matter what type of memory test

Question 6

Evidence to support declarative memory theory

Answer 6

Bayley et al.

• Tested new vocabulary in 2 amnesic subjects
• List of words contained a target word with 8 similar words.
• Amnesics were poor at correctly identifying word.

Evidence supports the inability to learn new facts [semantic], therefore supporting DMT

Question 7

Evidence that does not support declarative memory theory

Answer 7

Vargha-Khadem

• Beth, Jon, Kate [amnesics who had hippocampal damage after birth]
• Subjects completed normal school and have a good vocab and knowledge about the world
• Episodic memory severely affected.

Supports semantic info being learned, not supporting DMT

Question 8

Incidental learning and anterograde amnesiacs

Answer 8

Sharon et al.
- Does not support DMT.

Test:
- Subjects learned the name of objects incidentally vs explicitly.

Result:

• Subjects performed almost as well as controls when learning incidentally
• Unable to recall objects explicitly

Evidence supports semantic knowledge being learned in anterograde amnesics

Question 9

Semantic memory and anterograde amnesia

Answer 9

Evidence for learning semantic memory in anterograde memory is disputed

• Scquire and Bayley [et al.] believe it is poor using DMT
• Sharon et al, and Varga-Khadem believe s.memory is okay

Question 10

Implicit/ non-declarative memory

Answer 10

Type of LTM that does not require conscious effort to retrieve.

Divided into:

• Procedural memory [learning of motor skills]
• Priming

Question 11

Procedural memory

• Definiton
• Amnesia

Answer 11

Type of implicit memory.

• Learning of new motor skills [writing, instrument playing, driving]
• Involves the Basal ganglia

This is intact in amnesic.

Question 12

Evidence for intact procedural memory in amnesics

Answer 12

Butters et al

• Pursuit-rotor task
• Alzheimer’s patients learned normally
• Huntington’s disease patients were impaired
• Supports evidence for procedural memory being stored in basal ganglia.

Corkin
- Mirror tracing

Cohen and Scquire
- Mirror reading

Question 13

Priming

Answer 13

Type of implicit memory
- Exposure to a stimulus influences later response to stimulus

This is intact in amnesics
- Warrington and Weiskrantz were able to train amnesics through degraded pictures.

Question 14

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 14

Amnesia before brain injury

• Almost always present in all amnesics to a certain degree
• Semantic knowledge intact

Evidence for impairment of episodic memory is contested

Question 15

Standard model of consolidation

Answer 15

Proposed by Scquire

- Overtime, declarative memories are consolidated to other regions of the brain [like the neocortex]

Question 16

Evidence to support intact episodic memory of the distant past for retrograde amnesics

Answer 16

Bayley et al.

8 amnesic patients tested based on the length of time from the amnesia onset.

Subjects were mainly able to recall details of their lives in distant past.

Question 17

Evidence to support impaired episodic memory of the distant past for retrograde amnesics

Answer 17

Viskontase et al.

25 patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy had distant memory tested

• episodic memory impaired
• semantic intact

Question 18

Huntington’s disease and procedural memory

Answer 18

Procedural memory is linked to the basal ganglia.

Huntington’s disease affects the basal ganglia
- Severely impaired in procedural memory [evidence by Butters et al.]

Question 19

Semantic amnesia

• Definition
• Region of the brain affected

Answer 19

Poor knowledge of the meaning of words or concepts or other modalities [sounds]

Associated with the LEFT lateral temporal cortex

Question 20

Frontal lobe and memory

Answer 20

Frontal lobe is suspected to have control processes for memory.

Evidence: Janowsky et al.

• 7 Patients with frontal lobe lesions learned 20 facts.
• Patients given 6-8 day interval.
• 40 question test given [including general questions]
• Patients were impaired in the ability to recall where information was learned BUT were able to recall facts.

Question 21

Spontaneous confabulation

Answer 21

A ‘confused’ memory due to a breakdown in memory control processes
- Person acts on erroneous memories

Due to damage in frontal lobe

Question 22

Confabulation

Answer 22

Erroneous memories

• Can result from true memories misplaced in context
• Can be false altogether

Provoked= response to demand for information not available

Spontaneous- acting on erroneous memories.