Hidden Memory: A Rapid Method for the Study of Amnesia Using Perceptual Learning

Performance on finding hidden figures in a set of picture-puzzles is shown to separate out autobiographical memory and perceptual learning in a group of male neurosurgical patients. Two traumatic amnesics had normal perceptual learning without ability to recognize which pictures they had seen before. The method may be used in the study of transient amnesias of very short duration.