Acquisition of post-morbid vocabulary and semantic facts in the absence of episodic memory.
Disagreement exists in the literature over whether it is possible for new semantic (factual) information to be learned in the absence of episodic (event) memory. We report the case of R.S., a 49-year-old amnesic man, who we found to have acquired information about famous people, public events and new vocabulary during the 13-year period since he became amnesic, despite having no measurable anterograde episodic memory function and a profound loss of autobiographical memory. These data suggest that at least some severe amnesics are able to acquire new semantic knowledge, provided that critical temporal neocortical regions are spared. We discuss these findings in the context of recent connectionist models of memory.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK.
E G
EG
Kitchener
J R
JR
Hodges
R
R
McCarthy
D000647:Amnesia / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D001325:Autobiographies as Topic; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009275:Names; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary