False recall and false recognition: An examination of the effects of selective and combined lesions to the medial temporal lobe diencephalon and frontal lobe structures

The present experiment examined the false recall and false recognition of n onstudied words that are preceded by a list of strong associates in patient s with amnesia due to damage restricted to medial temporal lobe or dienceph alic regions (MTL/D amnesics), in nonamnesic patients with damage restricte d to the frontal lobes (FL nonamnesics), and in amnesic patients with damag e to the frontal lobes in addition to medial temporal lobe damage (FL amnes ics). We used the Deese/Roediger and McDermott paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roedi ger & McDermott, 1995) in which people frequently claim that nonstudied wor ds appeared on a presented list. At immediate free recall, the results take n together showed that MTL/D amnesic patients and FL nonamnesic patients pr oduced higher levels of false memory than did controls. At recognition both types of amnesic patients produced less false recognition than either fron tal-lobe patients or controls. The results are consistent with the hypothes is that abnormally high levels of false memories are related to the followi ng three conditions: (1) partial memory for the word lists, (2) the ability to extract the semantic gist of the list, and (3) a deficit in strategic m onitoring processes.