title: The immediacy of recollection: the use of the historical present in narratives of autobiographical episodes by patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy.
abstract: Objectively measuring the experiential phenomenon of "reliving" a personal memory without relying on the retrieval of specific contents such as richness/vividness of perceptual details is difficult. There are, however, some circumstances in which an indirect measure that does not require conscious retrieval or deliberate assessment of such information, would be quite useful (e.g., in very young children, in patients with poor fluency or inappropriate use of rating scales). Here, we examined the use of the historical present (HP), defined as a present tense that refers to a past action, in autobiographical narratives. The HP indexes a sense of reliving because the memory of the event is vividly re-experienced as occurring again in the current moment. We compared the use of the HP in narratives from neurologically intact controls and from patients with unilateral temporal lobe excisions or epilepsy (TLE). Results indicate that patients used fewer instances of the HP than healthy controls. Also, the use of the HP correlated positively with other measures of recollection, such as the total number of perceptual details contained in a narrative. We provide the first empirical evidence that a linguistic construct can be used to assess the conscious experience that accompanies recollection.
authors.affiliation: Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada. Electronic address: parkl@oldwestbury.edu.
authors.forename: Lillian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Krembil Neuroscience Centre, University Health Network, 399 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON M5T 2S8, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. Electronic address: marie.stl@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: St-Laurent
authors.affiliation: Krembil Neuroscience Centre, University Health Network, 399 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON M5T 2S8, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. Electronic address: Mary.McAndrews@uhn.on.ca.
authors.forename: Mary Pat
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: McAndrews
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada; Department of Psychology, Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada. Electronic address: momos@psych.utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Morris
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moscovitch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric