Week 3 Memory and Amnesia

Question 1

definition of amnesia

Answer 1

acquired impairment of explicit long term mem

Question 2

two types of amnesia + causes

Answer 2

neurogenic - brain lesions
psychogenic - psych factors

Question 3

anterograde amnesia

Answer 3

Impaired recall/recognition of facts/personal episodes after brain damage

Question 4

retrograde amnesia

Answer 4

Impaired recall/recognition of memories of facts/personal episodes before brain damage

Question 5

what memory impaired/spared in amnesia

Answer 5

short-term + implicit learning + mem preserved
some long-term can be spared e.g. procedural/semantic

Question 6

global amnesia

Answer 6

combined verbal and non-verbal mem disorder

Question 7

pure amnesia

Answer 7

absence of associated cog impairments
affects recall and recognition

Question 8

causes of amnesia

Answer 8

traumatic head injury (concussion)
stroke (ischemia)
substance abuse / alcoholism
alzheimer’s
vitamin deficiency / malnutrition
stress

Question 9

diff between STM and LTM

Answer 9

STM - mem for info currently in mind + limited
LTM _ stored info not always consciously accessible, virtually unlimited

Question 10

declarative LTM and two subgroups

Answer 10

declarative - explicit
two types:
events (episodic, personal exp)
facts (semantic, knowledge)

Question 11

non-declarative LTM + 4 subgroups

Answer 11

implicit
4 types:
procedural (motor/cog skills)
perceptual representation system (perceptual priming)
classical conditioning (conditioned responses between 2 stim)
non-associative learning (habituation sensitization)

Question 12

who was HM + disease + therapy

Answer 12

suffered epilepsy in 50s
radical therapy involving temporal lobectomy surgery to remove temporal lobes bilaterally, including hippocampus

Question 13

what happened to HM post-surgery

Answer 13

severe anterograde amnesia caused by medial temporal damage

Question 14

double dissociation

Answer 14

2 related mental processes shown to function independently

Question 15

case KC + parts that were damaged + impact on memory

Answer 15

motorcycle accident = widespread brain damage
large bilateral hippocampal lesions
sharp dissociation between intact semantic and impaired episodic mem

Question 16

why does location of brain damage impact the resulting deficit

Answer 16

different areas = different aspects of mem
diff lesions = diff patterns of spared/impaired mem functions

Question 17

what lesions result in episodic mem loss

Answer 17

hippocampal formation

Question 18

what lesions result in semantic mem loss

Answer 18

parahippocampal region

Question 19

how are declarative mem systems tested

Answer 19

intentional recollection
recall/recognition tasks

Question 20

how are non declarative memory systems tested

Answer 20

performance in priming tasks

Question 21

how are non declarative memory systems tested

Answer 21

performance in priming tasks

Question 22

what elements of mem linked to frontal lobes

Answer 22

prefrontal cortex of frontal lobes = maintenance/manipulation of info
short term working mem
encoding, retrieval, evaluation of info stored in long term
patients with PFC lesions = disorganized mem

Question 23

what are confabulations following PFC damage?

Answer 23

false/self-contradictory mems patients beleive are real
associated with damage to diff regions than in classical amnesia