INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF MODALITY ON DIRECT MEMORY FOR WORDS AND THEIR MODALITY - CLOSED-HEAD-INJURED AND CONTROL PARTICIPANTS

Twenty closed-head-injured (CHI) patients and 28 control participants were tested on recall and recognition of words. In addition, memory fo r modality (i.e., visual vs. auditory) of word presentation was measur ed directly (i.e., recognition) and indirectly (i.e., by its influence on word and modality recognition). As predicted, the CHI patients wer e impaired relative to controls on all of the direct memory tasks; tha t is, word recall, word recognition, and modality judgment. However, t he CHI and control groups did not differ significantly on the magnitud e of the modality effect (i.e., facilitation due to correspondence of modality in learning and test). The findings are interpreted in the th eoretical framework that distinguishes between item (i.e., words) and source (i.e., modality) memory and between direct and indirect measure s of memory.