WHEN AMNESIC PATIENTS PERFORM WELL ON RECOGNITION MEMORY TESTS

Extended exposure to study material can markedly improve subsequent re cognition memory performance in amnesic patients, even the densely amn esic patient H.M. To understand this phenomenon, the severely amnesic patient E.P., 3 other amnesic patients, and controls studied pictorial material and then were given either a yes-no (Experiment 1) or a 2-al ternative, forced-choice (Experiment 2) recognition test. The amnesic patients and controls benefited substantially from extended exposure, but patient E.P. consistently performed at chance. Furthermore, confid ence ratings corresponded to recognition accuracy. The results do not support the idea that the benefit of extended study time is due to som e kind of familiarity process made available through nondeclarative me mory. It is likely that amnesic patients benefit from extended study t ime to the extent that they have residual capacity for declarative mem ory.