Short-term memory for duration and distance in humans: Role of the hippocampus

Control participants and hypoxic participants with bilateral hippocampal da mage were tested for short-term memory (STM) for presentation duration of a single object, STM for a single object, STM for spatial distance informati on. and time estimation. Delays of 1, 4, 8, 12, or 16 s were used for all t he STM and time estimation tests. Results indicated that relative to contro ls, hypoxic participants were significantly impaired for STM for duration a nd distance information at the long but not short delays. Similarly, time e stimation was accurate only to 8 s for hypoxic participants, but STM for a single object was only mildly affected. Results suggest that the hippocampu s may be required for the processing of spatial and temporal STM informatio n.