A study of forgetting in amnesic patients.

Abstract Amnesic subjects can learn to recognise a series of fragmented pictures and words, and show evidence of retention over relatively long periods of time. It is possible, therefore, to study the rate of forgetting under conditions where amnesic and control patients both learn the material to the same criterion of success. In this study retention of lists of words was measured after intervals of one hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours. It was found that the rate of forgetting was more rapid by amnesics than controls, but a striking aspect was the relatively slow decline compared with clinical impressions. Significant savings were evident three days after learning, and at that interval there was no significant difference between patients and controls. Implications of the results are discussed briefly.