Memory for famous people in patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy and excisions.
Memory for famous individuals was assessed by the use of a recognition test in which participants first made familiarity judgments, followed by forced-choice decisions to specific probes for identity. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) or excisions, 12 left hemisphere and 12 right hemisphere, and 18 control participants identified famous figures across 3 decades (1970s-1990s). Only patients with right TLE were impaired at familiarity judgments of faces; this deficit was evident only for the most recent decades. Both groups of patients, however, were impaired at naming famous faces and at providing semantic information about famous people. These findings suggest the integrity of temporal structures in both hemispheres is critical for retrieval of detailed semantic information about famous individuals.
Viskontas
Indre V
IV
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. indre@ucla.edu
McAndrews
Mary Pat
MP
Moscovitch
Morris
M
D000328:Adult; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000601:surgery*; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index