The contribution of familiarity to associative memory in amnesia.

Full Abstract

In Experiment 1, using the remember/know paradigm with control participants, we compared the contribution of recollection and familiarity to associative recognition for compound stimuli and for unrelated word pairs. It was demonstrated that familiarity makes a greater contribution to associative recognition of compound stimuli than to associative recognition of unrelated word pairs. In Experiment 2, we examined associative recognition memory in medial temporal lobe amnesics, diencephalic amnesics, and control participants for the stimuli employed in Experiment 1. Whereas associative recognition for compounds and unrelated words was nearly identical in control participants, associative recognition was higher for compounds than for unrelated word pairs in amnesic patients. This pattern was observed in the medial temporal amnesic group as well as in the diencephalic amnesic group. These results suggest that associative recognition in amnesia is enhanced to the extent that performance can be supported by study-induced familiarity for the studied pair.

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Author information

Author/s: Giovanello, Kelly Sullivan (KS); Keane, Margaret M (MM); Verfaellie, Mieke (M);

Affiliation: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH/MIT/HMS, Charlestown, MA, USA. kgio(-atsign-)nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

Grants: MH57681 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; MH65113 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; NS26985 (Agency:NINDS NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Neuropsychologia (Neuropsychologia), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-; vol 44 (issue 10) : pp 1859-65

Dates: Created 2006/07/03; Completed 2006/09/19; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 16643967, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Aged
Alcoholism - complications
Amnesia - classification; etiology; physiopathology
Analysis of Variance
Anoxia - complications
Female
Humans

Humans
Judgment - physiology
Male
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests - statistics & numerical data
Paired-Associate Learning - physiology
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology

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