Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T13:42:05.033Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knowledge of New English vocabulary in amnesia: An examination of premorbidly acquired semantic memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2009

Mieke Verfaellie ,
Lisa Reiss  and
Heidi L. Roth
Mieke Verfaellie
Affiliation:
Memory Disorders Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Boston, MA 02130
Lisa Reiss
Affiliation:
Memory Disorders Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Boston, MA 02130
Heidi L. Roth
Affiliation:
Memory Disorders Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Boston, MA 02130
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To assess if amnesics have intact remote memory for general semantic information, we examined memory for vocabulary words with known dates of entry into the language between 1955 and 1989. Amnesics of mixed etiology with acute onset performed normally on both a recall and a recognition task. Korsakoff patients, in contrast, were impaired on both tasks and demonstrated a gradient such that their knowledge of words acquired during more recent time periods was worse than that of words acquired during more remote time periods. The improvement in performance associated with recognition testing was larger for Korsakoff patients than for control subjects and correlated significantly with a composite measure of frontal dysfunction. These findings suggest a deficit in the controlled search and retrieval of semantic information in Korsakoff patients. The implications of the differential performance of Korsakoff and mixed etiology amnesics for explanations of temporally graded retrograde amnesia are discussed. (JINS, 1995, I, 443–453.)

Keywords

Semantic memoryRetrograde amnesiaVocabulary knowledge
Type
Research Articles
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 1 , Issue 5 , September 1995 , pp. 443 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albert, M., Butters, N., & Brandt, J. (1981). Patterns of remote memory in amnesic and demented patients. Archives of Neurology, 38, 495–500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Albert, M., Butters, N., & Levin, J. (1979). Temporal gradients in the retrograde amnesia of patients with alcoholic Korsakoff's disease. Archives of Neurology, 36, 211–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. (1988). Cognitive psychology and human memory. Trends in Neuroscience, 11, 176–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beatty, W., Salmon, D., Bernstein, N., & Butters, N. (1987). Remote memory in a patient with amnesia due to hypoxia. Psychological Medicine, 17, 657–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butters, N. & Albert, M. (1982). Processes underlying failures to recall remote events. In Cermak, L.S. (Ed.), Human memory and amnesia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Butters, N. & Cermak, L.S. (1986). A case study of the forgetting of autobiographical knowledge: Implications for the study of retrograde amnesia. In Rubin, D. (Ed.), Autobiographical memory. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cermak, L.S. (1984). The episodic/semantic distinction in am nesia. In Squire, L.R. & Butters, N. (Eds.), The neuropsychology of memory. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, N. & Squire, L. (1981). Retrograde amnesia and remote memory impairment. Neuropsychologia, 19, 337–356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dall'Ora, P., Della, Sala S., & Spinnler, H. (1989). Autobiographical memory. Its impairment in amnesic syndromes. Cortex, 25, 197–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, S., Eslinger, P., Damasio, H., Van Hoesen, G., & Cornell, S. (1985). Multimodal amnesic syndrome following bilateral temporal and frontal damge: The case of patient DRB. Archives of Neurology, 42, 252–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Renzi, E. & Lucchelli, F. (1993). Dense retrograde amnesia, intact learning capability and abnormal forgetting rate: A consolidation deficit? Cortex, 29, 449–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabrieli, J.D.E., Cohen, N.J., & Corkin, S. (1988). The impaired learning of semantic knowledge following bilateral medial temporal-lobe resection. Brain and Cognition, 7, 525–539.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gade, A. & Mortensen, E.L. (1990). Temporal gradient in the remote memory impairment of amnesic patients with lesions in the basal forebrain. Neuropsychologia, 28, 985–1001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodges, J., Patterson, K., Oxbury, S., & Funnell, E. (1992). Semantic dementia: Progressive fluent aphasia with temporal lobe atrophy. Brain, 115, 1783–1806.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Incisa, Della Rochetta A. & Milner, B. (1993). Strategic search and retrieval inhibition: The role of the frontal lobes. Neuropsychologia, 31, 503–524.Google Scholar
Jacobson, R. & Lishman, W. (1987). Selective memory loss and global intellectual deficits in alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome. Psychological Medicine, 17, 649–655.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jernigan, T.L., Shafer, K., Butters, N., & Cermak, L.S. (1991). Magnetic resonance imaging of alcoholic Korsakoff patients. Neuropsychopharmacology, 4, 175–186.Google ScholarPubMed
Jetter, W., Poser, U., Freeman, R.B., & Markowitsch, H.J. (1986). A verbal long term memory deficit in frontal lobe damaged patients. Cortex, 22, 229–241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kapur, N., Ellison, D., Parkin, A., Hunkin, N., Burrows, E., Sampson, S., & Morrison, E. (1994). Bilateral temporal lobe pathology with sparing of medial temporal lobe structures: Lesion profile and pattern of memory disorder. Neuropsychologia, 32, 23–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kinsbourne, M. & Wood, F. (1982). Theoretical considerations regarding the episodic-semantic distinction. In Cermak, L.S. (Ed.), Human memory and amnesia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kopelman, M.D. (1989). Remote and autobiographical memory, temporal context memory and frontal atrophy in Korsakoff and Alzheimer patients. Neuropsychologia, 27, 437–460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kritchevsky, M. & Squire, L. (1989). Transient global amnesia: Evidence for extensive, temporally graded retrograde amnesia. Neurology, 39, 213–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacKinnon, D.F. & Squire, L.R. (1989). Autobiographical memory and amnesia. Psychobiology, 17, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meudell, P., Northern, B., Snowden, J., & Neary, D. (1980). Long term memory for famous voices in amnesia and normal subjects. Neuropsychologia, 18, 133–139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milner, B., Corkin, S., & Teuber, H. (1968). Further analysis of the hippocampal amnesia syndrome: 14-year follow-up study of H.M. Neuropsychologia, 6, 215–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, M., Butters, N., Miliotis, P., Eslinger, P., & Cermak, L. (1992). The dissociation of anterograde and retrograde amnesia in a patient with herpes encephalitis. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 14, 159–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimamura, A. & Squire, L. (1986). Korsakoff's syndrome: A study of the relation between anterograde amnesia and remote memory impairment. Behavioral Neuroscience, 100, 165–170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squire, L.R., Haist, F., & Shimamura, A.P. (1989). The neurology of memory: Quantitative assessment of retrograde amnesia in two groups of amnesic patients. The Journal of Neuroscience, 9, 828–839.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stuss, D., Alexander, M., Palumbo, C., Buckle, L., Sayer, L., & Pogue, J. (1994). Organizational strategies of patients with unilateral or bilateral frontal lobe injury in word list learning tasks. Neuropsychology, 8, 355–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warrington, E.K. & Weiskrantz, L. (1982). Amnesia: A disconnection syndrome? Neuropsychologia, 20, 233–248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weiskrantz, L. (1987). On issues and theories of the human amnesic syndrome. In Weinberger, N.McGaugh, J., & Lynch, G. (Eds.), Memory systems of the brain. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, R., Kazniak, A., & Fox, J. (1981). Remote memory in senile dementia. Cortex, 17, 41–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zola-Morgan, S., Squire, L., & Amaral, D. (1986). Human amnesia and the medial temporal region: Enduring memory impairment following a bilateral lesion limited to field CA1 of the hippocampus. Journal of Neuroscience, 6, 2950–2967.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed