case studies of brain damaged patients

what did Henry Molaison suffer from?

a brain injury from a surgical procedure which had attempted to relieve him from serizures caused by epilepsy

when did Henry Molaison lose his memory?

august 1953 at 27 years old

what happened during Henry Molaison's surgical procedure?

his hippocampus was removed by William Scoville which reduced seizures but left him with severe memory loss

why was Henry Molaison referred to neuropsychologists Wilder Penfield and Brenda Milner?

to assess the extent of his amnesia

what is the hippocampus known to be associated with?

consolidating memories, making the removal of this structure irreversible

why was Henry Molaison considered the ideal amnesia case?

his injury was specifically localised and his personality and intelligence were virtually intact

what types of amnesia was Henry Molaison assessed as having?

anterograde (inability to make new memories) and retrograde (loss of ability to recall past events)

how did Henry Molaison show an intact procedural memory?

he was able to learn new skills but had no memory of being able to learn them

how was Henry Molaison's ability to retrieve memories shown to be impacted by retrograde amnesia?

he could only retrieve partial events after the age of 16 and almost nothing past the age of 25

what could Henry Molaison's retrograde amnesia also have been caused by?

epilepsy medication and frequency of seizures

how was qualitative data gathered from Henry Molaison?

using interviews to understand which cognitive functions were still intact and which were impaired

what was Henry Molaison's brain gifted to after his death?

psychological research where it was spliced into over 2000 segments

how did Henry Molaison's case provide evidence for 3 types of long term memory?

episodic memory must be encoded using the hippocampus unlike procedural

how did Henry Molaison's case provide evidence for encoding and retrieval in long term memory using different systems?

he could retrieve some memories from before the surgery

what did KF suffer from?

damage in the left parietal-occipital cortex

what caused KF's brain damage?

surgery that was required after a motorbike accident at 17 which caused a blood clot in his brain

what age did KF develop epilepsy?

19

what was KF's tested IQ by psychologists at age 28?

overall IQ was 113 with verbal IQ being only 79

what was KF's digit span?

1 unless visually presented which increased it to 3-4

what was KF unable to repeat?

verbal stimuli

what did KF have good memory of?

daily and past events

what information has been gathered by KF's case to support the working memory model?

there are at least 2 types of short term memory which are verbal and visual

who reported KF's case?

Shallice and Warrington in 1972

what did Clive Wearing suffer from?

severe brain infection which caused damage in his hippocampus and left him with severe amnesia

what was Clive Wearing unable to form?

new memories as he now only holds a memory of only 30 seconds

what showed Clive Wearing's procedural memory was still intact?

his ability to learn new skills and a few facts, as well as being able to recall how to play piano

what information was gathered by Clive Wearing's case about the encoding and storage of long term memory?

encoding happens in the hippocampus and is stored in the cortex, CW's brain damage was therefore extensive as he could not retrieve any LTM

how does Clive Wearing's case provide information about the 3 types of long term memory?

semantic memory can survive damage to the hippocampus and cortex and episodic memories can remain intact when the hippocampus is damaged

how did Clive Wearing provide evidence for emotional memories being separate from episodic memories?

he had no memory of life before brain damage apart from the love he felt for his second wife

what do all 3 case studies provide evidence for?

short term and long term memory are separate as proposed by the multi-store model

when are case studies used?

for a small group or one person over a long period of time