Research study:Wilson, Kopelman, & Kapur (2008)

• Prominent and persistent loss of past awareness in amnesia: delusion, impaired consciousness or coping strategy
• Background

  people with amnesic syndrome experience varying degrees of memory loss (forgetting who they are, age, their families, and where they are). When memory loss is severe usually it is associated with brain injury, severe amnesia or the more advanced stages of dementia.
• Faulty episodic memories


  memories of past events that are incorrectly recalled (recalled at a different times or place, or something that never happened). You might remember your last holiday as Disney World but it was actually Blackpool.
• Faulty semantic memories


  knowledge and understanding of things can be inaccurate. In the case of Clive Wearing (severe retrograde amnesia) when he was shown a picture of a scarecrow he described it as a worshipping point for certain cultures.
• Delusions

  defined as false beliefs that the person who is experiencing them fully believes in and will not listen to others who argue that it cannot be correct. These are preoccupying (people are focused on it). Delusions can be seen as part of faulty semantic memory in people who have damage to their memory.
• Aim

  report on the case of Clive Wearing who suffered from a severe and very rare case of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Researchers recorded neurophysiological assessments of Clive’s brain as well as his psychological experiences.                                                                                           
• Sample

  Clive Wearing (CV) was born in the UK in 1938. He was an outstanding musician and a gifted musical scholar and was leader of the London Sinfonietta.
• Methods

  A longitudinal single case study covering 21 years. Qualitative and quantitative data was gathered
• Materials

  neuropsychological tests (IQ tests, tests of verbal fluency, and a digit span test) were used to test STM and LTM. They used MRI scans to see the amount and location of CW brain damage
• Results

  CW was found to have severe brain abnormalities, anterograde and retrograde amnesia, inability to form new memories, decreased performance and verbal IQ’s, some loss of semantic memory and a severely damaged episodic memory.
• CW’s beliefs about his consciousness


  CW did not appear to accept that he had a problem with his memory, instead insisted memory problems were due to the fact that he had not be conscious since his illness. When he was challenged about his belief about consciousness (showing him diary entries that he had written) he would say that he wasn’t conscious at the time of doing it.
• Proto self


  We are not consciously aware of
• Core consciousness

  Requires short-term memory, a person is aware that their thoughts are their own and can respond to emotions
• Autobiographical self


  Linked to long-term memory and a person's memory of their past experiences
• CW has a core consciousness - he is aware that his thoughts are his own
• Severe brain damage has meant that CW was virtually unable to create new autobiographical memories
• When CW's wife came to visit

  He could not create a new memory, so every time was as if it was the first time since his illness
• Damasio (2000): 'Made up of the proto self, the core consciousness and finally autobiographical self'
• Conclusions

  CW sense of self was disrupted by his memory disorder. The viral infection herpes simplex encephalitis can result in brain damage. Brain damage can result in both retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Brain damage can significantly affect memory. Provides support for the MSM as it suggests that STM and LTM have separate stores. MSSM would suggest that CW is unable to use elaborative rehearsal or maintenance rehearsal in order for the information to pass into LTM.