DISSOCIATION BETWEEN PROPER NAME AND COMMON NOUN LEARNING

Recall of common and uncommon surnames and occupations associated with pictures of unfamiliar faces was examined in 24 younger adults (Mean age = 26.2 years) and 24 older adults (Mean age = 70.9 years). Younger and older adults recalled more common and uncommon occupations than s urnames. Moreover, older adults showed a disproportionately greater pr eference for learning occupations than surnames compared to younger ad ults. H. Damasio et al. (1996) reported that temporal lobe regions act ive in locating familiar names differed form those for objects. Our da ta suggest different organization between proper nouns and occupations from earliest encoding.