Research article summary (published 29 Nov 1995):

Different components in word-list forgetting of pure amnesics, degenerative demented and healthy subjects.

Full Abstract

This study investigated the contribution of different components of the serial position curve to the accelerated forgetting rate displayed by amnesic and degenerative demented patients in word-list recall. For this purpose, we analyzed immediate and 15 min delayed recall performances on Rey's 15-word learning task of 16 pure amnesic, 15 Alzheimer's demented and 81 healthy subjects. Results documented that in all groups most forgetting occurred at the expense of terminal items of the word list. Nevertheless, both amnesic and demented patients showed a disproportionately larger memory loss on the recent part of the serial position curve than healthy subjects. Finally, amnesics (but not AD patients) suffered from a significantly larger forgetting rate for primacy items than normal controls. These data demonstrate that a critical deficit in memory disordered patients is represented by a failure in transferring information from a transitory memory status to a more durable storing condition. At least in amnesic patients, our results also suggest "true" long-term forgetting, presumably due to decay or to the intervening inaccessibility of previously stored memory representations.

Author information

Author/s: Carlesimo, G A (GA); Sabbadini, M (M); Fadda, L (L); Caltagirone, C (C);

Affiliation: Clinica Neurologica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior (Cortex), published in ITALY. (Language: eng)

Reference: 1995-Dec; vol 31 (issue 4) : pp 735-45

Dates: Created 1996/10/22; Completed 1996/10/22; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 8750030, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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.

Adult Aged Alzheimer Disease - psychology Amnesia - psychology Female Humans Male Memory Disorders - psychology

Memory Disorders - psychology Memory, Short-Term - physiology Mental Recall Middle Aged Neuropsychological Tests Serial Learning - physiology Verbal Behavior - physiology Verbal Learning - physiology

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