Pp. Wang et U. Bellugi, EVIDENCE FROM 2 GENETIC SYNDROMES FOR A DISSOCIATION BETWEEN VERBAL AND VISUAL-SPATIAL SHORT-TERM-MEMORY, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section A, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 16(2), 1994, pp. 317-322
Williams and Down syndromes, two genetic syndromes of abnormal neurode
velopment, are characterized by specific neuropsychological profiles a
nd unique patterns of brain morphology. We find that the superior lang
uage ability of subjects with Williams syndrome is accompanied by sign
ificantly better performance ona verbal short-term memory task. Conver
sely, subjects with Down syndrome perform significantly better on a vi
sual-spatial short-term memory task. This double dissociation provides
neurogenetic evidence for the distinction between short-term storage
for verbal and for visual-spatial stimuli.