title: What does a patient with semantic dementia remember in verbal short-term memory? Order and sound but not words.
abstract: In this study, we explored capacities for three different aspects of short-term verbal memory in patients with semantic dementia. As expected, the two patients had poor recall for lexico-semantic item information, as assessed by immediate serial recall of word lists. In contrast, their short-term memory for phonological information was preserved, as evidenced by normal performance for immediate serial recall of nonword lists, with normal or increased nonword phonotactic-frequency effects, and increased sensitivity to phonological lures in a delayed probe recognition task. Furthermore, the patients appeared to have excellent memory for the serial order of the words in a list. These data provide further support for the proposal that language knowledge is a major determining factor of verbal STM capacity, but they also highlight the necessary distinction of processes involved in item and order recall, as proposed by recent models of STM.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Liège and Fonds National de Recherche Scientifique, Liège, Belgium. smajerus@ulg.ac.be
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Majerus
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Norris
authors.forename: Karalyn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Patterson
mesh_terms: D003704:Dementia / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary