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

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.)

The loss of episodic memories in retrograde amnesia: single–case and group studies

“…There were signi¢cant correlations with news event recall and recognition scores as well as with memory for autobiographical incidents and facts. Similarly, Verfaellie et al (1995b) obtained a signi¢cant correlation between a measure of more purely semantic memory (words which had come into the vocabulary at di¡erent times) and a`composite' measure of frontal function. Moreover, D'Esposito et al (1996) contrasted subarachnoid haemorrhage patients who performed well or badly on executive tests, ¢nding that only patients with severe executive impairment showed RA on a famous faces test, and that improvement in executive scores was correlated with improvement in RA.…”

New views on old memories: re-evaluating the role of the hippocampal complex

“…Remote memory in such patients was assessed in a variety of tests that measured, for example, memory for autobiographical episodes [26,28], public events and people [2,10,36,60,72], television shows [68,75], as well as other information (e.g. vocabulary [87,89]). The observed pattern of temporally graded RA was interpreted in terms of consolidation theory, which states that a period of time is required to complete those physiological processes needed to form enduring representations (e.g.…”

Retrograde amnesia for semantic information in Alzheimer's disease

“…Five neologisms were chosen from each five-year period since 1960, and had to be defined by the patient. Verfaellie et al (1995) found that patients with Korsakoff 's disease performed worse on this test than alcoholic controls. Moreover, their performance suggested a temporal gradient, with their knowledge of neologisms from recent periods being worse than that of neologisms from remote periods.…”

“…Moreover, words usually do not leave the language, so that memories for the word can continuously have formed since the moment the word entered the language to the onset of amnesia. Nevertheless, Verfaellie et al (1995) reported a gradient in the remote memory of patients with Korsakoff 's disease using a neologisms test. Gradients can thus be observed with such retrograde amnesia tests.…”

“…Verfaellie et al (1995) constructed a test consisting of neologisms, words that had entered the language recently. Five neologisms were chosen from each five-year period since 1960, and had to be defined by the patient.…”