Remembering norman schwarzkopf: evidence for two distinct long-term fact learning mechanisms

Abstract

We report two patients who showed distinctive and contrasting patterns of performance relating to their ability to remember new facts. A patient who sustained a missile injury to the mammillary bodies four years previously was left with a marked memory disorder. He nevertheless showed evidence of having acquired long-term factual knowledge…e.g. he accurately recalled information about Norman Schwarzkopf…in spite of severe deficits on a matched test of name-occupation learning that was administered as a standard paired-associate learning test. By contrast, a patient who suffered bilateral non-medial temporal lobe pathology 10 years previously showed the reverse pattern of performance…he could not identify names such as Norman Schwarzkopf, but he performed well on the matched name-occupation learning test. These data point to two anatomically distinct and functionally dissociable long-term fact learning mechanisms, one that is primarily subserved by limbic-diencephalic structures and one that is primarily based in the neocortex.