THE HIPPOCAMPAL SYSTEM AND THE DECLARATIVE-PROCEDUAL MEMORY DISTINCTION IN HUMANS

  1. An Example of Parameter Sensitivity: Graf, Squire, and Mandler (1984) Word-stem Completion Study
    1. Two different measures of retention of certain words
    2. Those words' three initial letters form the initial stem of several different words (not included on the study list). E.g,
      1. motel - > mother, ...
      2. cyclone -> cycle, ...
    3. Ss were presented with a list of such words to study and were then tested in two different conditions:
      1. cued-recall condition (instructions were to use the word stems as cues to help them recall items that had been on the list of studied words)
        1. impaired performance by amnesic patients
      2. word completion condition (instructions were to report the first word that come to mind that completes each stem)
        1. intact performance by amnesic patients, See Fig. 2-27
    4. Interpretations
      1. cued-recall
        1. Ss are encouraged to compare each of the stems to the stored representation of whole words
        2. This requires representation of the relations among these arbitrarily associated words
        3. and required flexible manipulation of these representations to permit their comparison with each stems.
      2. word completion
        1. through a facilitation of the word-identification process for previously presented words,
        2. expressed when (and only when) producing those words again.
        3. Not require that S be capable of judging that the words had been previously presented, or express a memory representation in any other way
  2. Skill Learning
      1. Ss are challenged on multiple occasions to solve some type of problem or perform some repetitive task, and
      2. the speed and efficacy of their solution performance is evaluated across trials.
    1. Perceptual-Motor Learning
      1. Mirror tracing, See Fig. 2-28
      2. Rotary pursuit, See Fig. 2-29, 2-30
      3. Serial reaction time task, See Fig. 2-31
    2. Perceptual Skills
      1. Mirror reading, See Fig.2-32, 2-33
    3. Cognitive Skills
      1. Tower of Hanoi puzzle, See Fig. 2-34, 2-35
  3. Repetition Priming
    1. Complete word stems, or word fragments
    2. Identify briefly presented or visually degraded words or picture, see Fig 2-36, 2-37
    3. Bias toward previously studied items in spelling, category, drawing, see Fig 2-38