Remote Memory for Items, Contents, and Contexts: A Case Study for Post-traumatic Amnesia

Abstract

We examined remote memory in a patient with posttraumatic amnesia. In special assessment for public events, the patient showed preserved verbal recognition of items and contents of past events, and impaired verbal recall of contents of events. This pattern was not observed in autobiographical memory, in which his performance was perfect. In time estimation of past events, the patient showed a temporally graded impairment for public events in both conditions of allocentric and egocentric temporal judgment, but for autobiographical memory in only the former condition. These two patterns of dissociation suggest that the impairment in recall of public events may be related to disturbed retrieval strategy using the allocentric temporal context information about past public events.