title: The long-term effects of mild head injury on short-term memory for visual form, spatial location, and their conjunction in well-functioning university students.
abstract: Research has suggested the presence of subtle long-term cognitive changes in otherwise well-functioning individuals who have previously sustained a mild head injury (MHI). This paper investigated the long-term effects of MHI on visual, spatial, and visual-spatial short-term memory in well-functioning university students. Sixteen students who reported having sustained a MHI were compared to 16 controls on tests of short-term memory (STM) for abstract polygons in haphazardly arranged locations. The three tests differed only in the requirements for recall (shapes for the visual task, locations for the spatial task, and the shapes in their respective locations for the visual-spatial task). MHI participants were selectively impaired on spatial memory, suggesting that tasks of spatial STM may be more sensitive, compared to tasks of visual STM, to the subtle long-term cognitive changes that may be present after a MHI.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. pcmcyml@nus.edu.sg
authors.forename: Y M Lisa
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Chuah
authors.forename: Murray T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Maybery
authors.forename: Allison M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001924:Brain Concussion / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D012016:Reference Values; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology