Biopsychology Chapter 11
Memory Research - Answer- Closely tied to information discovered from HENRY GUSTAV MOLAISON (H.M.)
HENRY GUSTAV MOLAISON (H.M.) - Answer- - American memory disorder patient
- Had a BILATERAL MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY in attempt to cure his epilepsy
- Removed the a...
Biopsychology Chapter 11
Memory Research - Answer- Closely tied to information discovered from HENRY
GUSTAV MOLAISON (H.M.)
HENRY GUSTAV MOLAISON (H.M.) - Answer- - American memory disorder patient
- Had a BILATERAL MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY in attempt to cure his
epilepsy
- Removed the anterior two-thirds of his
HIPPOCAMPI, PARAHIPPOCAMPAL, ENTORINAL CORTICES,
PIRIFORM CORTICES
AMYGDALAE
Amnesic Effects of Bilateral Medial Temporal Lobectomy - Answer- - H.M's seizures
were dramatically REDUCED
- But so was his LONG-TERM MEMORY
-Mild retrograde amnesia
- Severe anterograde amnesia
Medial temporal lobectomy - Answer- Notice that in addition to subcortical structures,
CORTICAL (Rhinal Cortex) structures were also removed
Retrograde Amnesia - Answer- Unable to remember the PAST
= Backward-acting
Anterograde Amnesia - Answer- Unable to form NEW memories
= Forward-acting
H.M's short-term vs. long-term memory - Answer- - Unable to form most types of
NEW long-term memories
- Short-term memory was still intact
Formal assessment of H.M. anterograde amnesia: Discovery of unconscious
memories - Answer- - Digit span
- Block-tapping memory-span test
Digit Span - Answer- - H.M. can repeat digits
- Provided that the time between learning and recall is WITHIN the duration of STM
Block-tapping memory-span test - Answer- - Demonstrated that H.M's amnesia was
GLOBAL
= not limited to one sensory modality
Assessing H.M. - Answer- - H.M. improved with practice on SENSORIMOTOR/
NON-SENSORIMOTOR tasks all without recalling previous practice sessions
, - H.M. readily learned responses through Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning but had
NO MEMORY of the conditioning trials
Sensorimotor - Answer- - Mirror drawing
= Everyday HM would be asked to draw using a mirror (like he faced a mirror and
had a board covering his hand, so basically he had to learn how to draw looking at a
mirror image of his hand)
= Everyday he got better, but everyday he acted like it was a new task
= He had good retention of the task but no conscious recollection of having
performed it before
- Rotary pursuit
Non-sensorimotor - Answer- - Incomplete pictures
What's the point? - Answer- - Memory doesn't need to be EXPLICIT (declarative) to
be beneficial
- We don't need to recall everything for the experience to change us
Major Scientific Contributions of HM's Case - Answer- 1. Medial temporal lobes are
involved in memory
2. Short term memory, remote memory, and long term memory are distinctly
separate
= HM was unable to move memories from STM --> LTM
= Issue with MEMORY CONSOLIDATION
4. Memory may EXIST but not RECALLED
= HM could exhibit a skill he did not know he had learned
= EXPLICIT vs. IMPLICIT memories
Repetition priming tests - Answer- - Used to assess implicit memory
Ex. performance in identifying word fragments is IMPROVED when the words have
been seen before
MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBE AMNESIA - Answer- - Not all patients with this form of
amnesia are unable to form new explicit long-term memories
Semantic memory - Answer- = General information
- May function normally with medial temporal lobe amnesia
Episodic memory - Answer- = Events that one has experienced
= Knowledge for events in a personal past
= Unique to the individual
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