J. Cogn. Neurosci.
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

This Article
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by MacKay, D. G.
Right arrow Articles by Burke, D. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by MacKay, D. G.
Right arrow Articles by Burke, D. M.

The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Vol 10, 377-394, Copyright © 1998 by The MIT Press

ARTICLES

H.M. Revisited: Relations between Language Comprehension, Memory, and the Hippocampal System

Donald G. MacKay, Rachel Stewart and Deborah M. Burke

Three studies tested the claim that H.M. exhibits a 'pure memory deficit' that has left his ability to comprehend language unimpaired relative to memory-normal controls. In Study 1, H.M. and memory-normal controls of comparable intelligence, education, and age indicated whether sentences were ambiguous or unambiguous, and H.M. detected ambiguities significantly less often than controls. In Study 2, participants identified the two meanings of visually presented sentences that they knew were ambiguous, and relative to controls, H.M. rarely discovered the ambiguities without help and had difficulty understanding the first meanings, experimenter requests, and his own output. Study 3 replicated these results and showed that they were not due to brain damage per se or to cohort effects: Unlike H.M., a patient with bilateral frontal lobe damage detected the ambiguities as readily as young and same-cohort older controls. These results bear on two general classes of theories in use within a wide range of neurosciences and cognitive sciences: The data favor 'distributed-memory theories' that ascribe H.M.'s deficit to semantic-level binding processes that are inherent to both language comprehension and memory, over 'stages-of-processing theories,' where H.M.'s defective storage processes have no effect on language comprehension.


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Cogn. Neurosci.Home page
R. Vandenberghe, A.C. Nobre, and C.J. Price
The Response of Left Temporal Cortex to Sentences
J. Cogn. Neurosci., May 1, 2002; 14(4): 550 - 560.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J. Cogn. Neurosci.Home page
R. Knott and W. Marslen-Wilson
Does the Medial Temporal Lobe Bind Phonological Memories?
J. Cogn. Neurosci., July 1, 2001; 13(5): 593 - 609.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J. Neurosci.Home page
L. Stefanacci, E. A. Buffalo, H. Schmolck, and L. R. Squire
Profound Amnesia After Damage to the Medial Temporal Lobe: A Neuroanatomical and Neuropsychological Profile of Patient E. P.
J. Neurosci., September 15, 2000; 20(18): 7024 - 7036.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 BrainHome page
S. M. Sawrie, R. C. Martin, F. G. Gilliam, R. E. Faught, B. Maton, J. W. Hugg, N. Bush, K. Sinclair, and R. I. Kuzniecky
Visual confrontation naming and hippocampal function: A neural network study using quantitative 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Brain, April 1, 2000; 123(4): 770 - 780.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEURAL COMPUTATION J COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE MIT PRESS JOURNALS
Copyright © 1998 by The MIT Press.