T1 L10 Neuropsychology of memory

Question 1

What is amnesia?

Answer 1

Intelligence is intact
Attentional span is intact
Personality is unaffected
Ability to take in new information is severely & usually permanently affected
Verbal & visual short-term memory is intact

Question 2

What happened to HM?

Answer 2

Underwent surgery for treatment of severe epilepsy
Surgery involved bilateral removal of his medial temporal lobes including the hippocampus
Completely lost his memory for events after surgery

Question 3

What is amnesia usually caused by?

Answer 3

Damage to the medial temporal lobe or anatomically connected regions

Question 4

What conditions can amnesia occur in?

Answer 4

Head injurys
Alzheimer’s disease
Epilepsy
Stroke

Question 5

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 5

After the brain injury

Anterograde episodic memories are severely affected

Question 6

What is procedural memory?

Answer 6

Learning of motor skills, which is distinct from explicit long-term memory

Question 7

What is the evidence that amnesiacs can learn new skills?

Answer 7

Mirror tracing - Corkin (1968)

Mirror reading - Cohen & Squire (1980)

Question 8

What were the results of Butters study in 1990?

Answer 8

Healthy controls & patients with Alzheimer’s disease showed normal learning (implicit memory)
Patients with Huntingdon’s disease were impaired
Evidence for independent procedural memory system

Question 9

What are the dedicated brain systems for procedural memory?

Answer 9

Basal ganglia

Question 10

What happens when a skill becomes automatic?

Answer 10

It can operate in the absence of awareness

Question 11

What is the declarative memory theory?

Answer 11

All declarative memories (episodic & semantic) depend on medial temporal lobes for their acquisition & short-term retention

Question 12

Describe Tulving’s definitions in 1971

Answer 12

Episodic memory - Memory for events & occurrences that are specific in time & place
Semantic memory - knowledge of facts, concepts, word meanings. Can be retrieved without knowledge about where & when information was acquired

Question 13

According to Bayley in 2008, can new semantic memories be formed despite amnesia?

Answer 13

No
Tested new vocabulary in 2 adult amnesiacs
Poor episodic & semantic memory
Supports Squire’s declarative memory theory

Question 14

Can new semantic memories be formed despite amnesia when testing patients with damage after birth?

Answer 14

3 typical amnesiacs who had damage to the hippocampus just after birth
Have grossly impaired episodic memory
They can form new semantic memories

Question 15

What did Sharon test in 2011?

Answer 15

New learning in adult amnesiacs
When learning was incidental, amnesiacs could learn the names of objects
New semantic memories can be formed
Doesn’t support Squire’s declarative memory theory

Question 16

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 16

Before brain injury

Some degree is almost always present

Question 17

What is the standard model of consolidation?

Answer 17

Over time, declarative memories become consolidated to other brain regions

Question 18

What are the retrograde (long-before lesion) memories affected in a typical amnesiac patient?

Answer 18

Episodic - okay
Semantic - okay
Supports Squire’s standard model of consolidation

Question 19

?What did Viskontas do in 2000

Answer 19

Tested 25 patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy
Found poor episodic memory & okay semantic memory
Doesn’t support Squire’s standard model of consolidation

Question 20

Describe impairment of semantic memory

Answer 20

Semantic dementia
Poor knowledge of meaning of words or concepts
Naming difficulties
Not confined to one modality

Question 21

What is semantic knowledge associated with?

Answer 21

The lateral temporal cortex on the left side of the brain

Question 22

What did Janowsky investigate in 1989?

Answer 22

7 patients with frontal lobe lesions
Learned 20 trivial facts
6-8 day interval
Tested 40 questions
Patients were only impaired on their ability to identify where they had learnt the information

Question 23

What are the types of confabulation?

Answer 23

Erroneous memories
Provoked
Spontaneous

Question 24

Describe provoked confabulation?

Answer 24

Normal response to a demand for information which is not available

Question 25

What is erroneous memories confabulation?

Answer 25

Memories either false in themselves or resulting from true memories misplaced in context or inappropriately retrieved or interpreted

Question 26

What is spontaneous confabulation?

Answer 26

Person acts on their erroneous memories
Usually a result of frontal lobe damage
Not due to a damage to memory storage

Question 27

What causes spontaneous confabulation?

Answer 27

Breakdown in memory by control processes such as monitoring whether retrieved memories are relevant to now