Processing and short-term retention of relational information in amnesia.
In a recent eye-movement study [Psychol. Sci. 11 (2000) 454], amnesic patients failed selectively to exhibit long-term effects of memory for the relations among the constituent elements of scenes. This failure could be due to a deficit specifically in long-term relational memory, as we have suggested; or in retention of relational information over any delay, whether involving perceptual processing and short-term maintenance or long-term memory, consistent with suggestions from recent studies of the hippocampus; or in on-line processing of relational information, as would occur in perceptual or feature binding. Here we show robust eye-movement effects of relations among elements of scenes in amnesia in a short-delay matching task, with the same materials and in the same amnesic patients in which long-delay conditions elicited failure. These findings document intact processing and short-term retention of relational information in amnesia, indicating that amnesia associated with hippocampal damage results in a relational memory deficit, specifically of long-term memory.
Ryan
Jennifer D
JD
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. jryan@rotman-baycrest.on.ca
Cohen
Neal J
NJ
D000647:Amnesia / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003118:Color Perception; D005133:Eye Movements; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008568:Memory; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception