Short-Term Visual and Auditory Memory Disorders After Parietal and Frontal Lobe Damage

Abstract

An attempt was made to assess the role of the parietal lobe in the mediation of short-term visual and auditory memory processes. Patients with parietal or anterior damage (left or right hemisphere) were compared on tests of short-term visual (geometric patterns, single consonants, consonant trigrams) and auditory (single consonants, consonant trigrams) memory as well as a visual learning task. To separate registration from memory deficits, the Peterson and Peterson technique was used to assess the memory decay function between zero and 18 sec. Both right hemisphere groups evidenced more severe memory deficits on the visual (verbal and patterned material) than on the auditory tasks. In contrast, the left parietal patients had memory deficits on both visual (verbal and patterned stimuli) and auditory tasks while the left frontal group revealed registration, but not memory, deficits for verbal material presented either visually or auditorily. These results are interpreted as supporting the notion that the right hemisphere, especially the parietal region, is involved in the processing of visual information, both verbal and patterned, while the left hemisphere is concerned with verbal material irrespective of sensory modality.