Memory Disorders Flashcards
Herman Ebbinghaus
Developed first methods for assessing learning and memory of a controlled experience.
What are the two reasons for which memories can be disrupted? What do each of these result in?
- Storage failure: permanent amnesia.
2. Retrieval failure: temporary amnesia.
What are the 7 sins of memory?
- Transience: weakening of memory over time.
- Absent-mindedness: the deficient interface between attention and memory.
- Blocking: failed search for info.
- Misattribution: assigning memory to an incorrect source.
- Suggestibility: memories can be implanted.
- Bias: personal beliefs influence memories.
- Persistence: repeated recall of specific memories.
Psychogenic amnesia
Amnesia with no physical cause.
Retrograde amnesia
Loss of memories occurring prior to the trauma.
Anterograde amnesia
Inability to create new memories
What are 6 physical causes of amnesia?
Stroke, viral infection, tumours, closed head injury, thiamine deficiency, age-related neurodegeneration.
Organic amnesia
Resulting from injury to the brain
Ribot’s law
Recent memories are lost first, older ones are the most resilient
What two tests are used to assess retrograde amnesia?
Boston Remote Memory Test, “Dead or Alive” test.
Boston Remote Memory Test (BRMT)
Assess distant memories based on well-known historical events.
Dead or Alive test
Tests recognition of whether a famous person is still iving.
What test is used to assess Anterograde amnesia?
Weschler’s memory scale-revised
Weschler’s Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R)
Range of tests used to assess verbal and non-verbal memory.
Reconsolidation
Updating of LTM by temporary return of LTM to an active, modifiable (STM) state.
Korsakoff Syndrome
Results from a deficiency in thiamine (vitamin B1). Causes anterograde amnesia.
Mammillary bodies
Connected to the hippocampus; damage elicits anterograde amnesia.
Mediodorsal thalamic nucleus
Connect prefrontal cortex to thalamus; damage elicits amnesia for autobiographical information.
What is damaged in Korsakoff syndrome?
Mammillary bodies and mediodorsal thalamic nucleus.
What are the six characteristics of anterograde amnesia?
- Intact short-term and semantic memory.
- General intellect is intact.
- Intact procedural and perceptual learning.
- Severe anterograde amnesia.
- Variable degree of retrograde amnesia.
- Selective failure of episodic memory.
What are the 2 explanations for amnesiac syndrome?
- Failure to store contextual information.
2. Deficit in memory consolidation.
4 symptoms of frontal lobe damage
- Confabulation.
- Source amnesia.
- Inability to specify memories.
- Impaired STM.
Confabulation
Production of false memories.
Source amnesia
Forget knowledge source.
