Recall of remote episodic memory in amnesia

Abstract

Abstract-Recall of remote episodic memory was assessed in three types of amnesic patient whose remote semantic memory had been evaluated previously. Patients with Korsakoffs syndrome, case N.A. and patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy all succeeded in recalling specific autobiographical episodes in response to single-word cues, and in many conditions performed as well as control subjects. Their pattern of performance generally paralleled that obtained in previous tests of remote semantic memory. These results argue against a view that amnesia reflects a selective deficit of episodic memory and suggest that the semanticepisodic distinction cannot illuminate the fundamental deficit in amnesia. Nor can the facts of amnesia confirm or deny the validity of this distinction in normal memory.

Autobiographical memory and amnesia

“…The same list of words and the same procedure were used in a previous study (Zola-Morgan et al, 1983). The subjeets were told to seleet episodes from any time in their life but to describe an episode that could be remembered as having happened at a particuiar time and in a particular place.…”

“…A specifie, detailed memory of an episode earned 1 point and a partial memory or a failure to reca1l earned O. Second, responses were scored aceording to a 0 to 3 seale, as described previously (Zola-Morgan et al, 1983). Three points were given for a specifie, detailed memory of an episode (e.g., "It was freezing and there was snow on the ground and it was a little overpass that I was going over ... weil, I went over the top going too fast.…”

“…Subjeets are asked to recolleet autobiographieal episodes in response to a fixed list of eue words. Quantitative assessments of amnesie patients using this technique have found that some patients ean recollect well-formed autobiographieal episodes, although they often tend to draw them from earlier time periods than do normal subjeets (Baddeley & Wilson, 1986;Sagar, Cohen, Corkin, & Growdon, 1985;Zola-Morgan, Cohen, & Squire, 1983; ZolaMorgan, Squire, & Amaral, 1986). At the same time, not all amnesie patients are eapable of reeonstrueting normal episodes, and some patients are said to be unable to produee any episodes from their lives at all (Cermak & O'Connor, 1983;Damasio, Eslinger, Damasio, Van Hoesen, & Cornell, 1985;Tulving, Schacter, MeLaehlan, & Moseoviteh, 1988;Warrington & MeCarthy, 1988).…”

Regret as autobiographical memory

“…The reminiscence bump is a feature of such distributions and it describes a disproportionate clustering of memories retrieved from the period of adolescence and early adulthood (typically spanning the years from age 10 to 30). The bump first came to light when Rubin et al (1986) combined their own data with re-analysed data from three existing word-cue studies (Fitzgerald & Lawrence, 1984;Franklin & Holding, 1977;Zola-Morgan, Cohen & Squire, 1983) and found a reliable increase in memories reported from the period spanning 10 to 30 years of age. The bump was only observed for adults over the age of 30; for adults under 30 the number of memories recalled decreased linearly as a function of time, as would be predicted by the monotonically decreasing forgetting function first observed by Ebbinghaus (1885Ebbinghaus ( /1964.…”

“…The reminiscence bump is a robust phenomenon observed in healthy adults and in clinical populations (Zola-Morgan et al, 1983). In structure if not in content it is similar across cultures (Conway, Wang, Hanyu & Haque, 2005), but perhaps even more remarkable than its universality in the real world is that the reminiscence bump can also be found when dating methodologies are applied to people"s dreams (Grenier et al, 2005).…”