False recognition after a right frontal lobe infarction: Memory for general and specific information

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 1997-07, Vol.35 (7), p.1035-1049
• Main Authors: Curran, Tim, Schacter, Daniel L., Norman, Kenneth A., Galluccio, Lissa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Association Learning - physiology; Attention - physiology; Brain Damage, Chronic - diagnosis; Brain Damage, Chronic - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Infarction - diagnosis; Cerebral Infarction - physiopathology; Discrimination Learning - physiology; Dominance, Cerebral - physiology; episodic memory; false recognition; Frontal Lobe - physiopathology; frontal lobes; Generalization (Psychology) - physiology; Humans; Male; Mental Recall - physiology; Verbal Learning - physiology
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/S0028-3932(97)00029-8

We previously reported a case study of a man with right frontal lobe damage, BG, who showed extraordinarily high false alarm rates on remember-know recognition tests (Schacter, D. L. et al., Neuropsychologia, 1996, Vol. 34, pp. 793–808). Experiment 1 extends his high false alarm rate to yes-no recognition tests. BG typically gives false ‘remember’ responses on remember-know tests, and this pattern was uninfluenced when he was asked to explain the basis for his ‘remember’ responses (Experiments 2 and 3). When BG was given a semantic encoding task, he stopped giving ‘remember’-based false alarms (Experiment 4). Signal detection analyses revealed that BG had a discrimination deficit and an abnormally liberal response bias (especially for ‘remember’ responses) in most conditions. Overall, BG's high false alarm rate is interpreted as reflecting an over-reliance on the general similarity between a test item and the study episode.