Frontal-lobe contribution to recency judgements

Three recency-discrimination tasks (involving concrete words, representational drawings and abstract paintings) were administered to 117 patients who had undergone unilateral cortical removals, and to 20 normal control subjects. Frontal or anterior temporal-lobe excision did not impair simple item recognition, and neither left nor right anterior-temporal lobectomy affected recency judgements on any task. In contrast, excisions that encroached on the mid-lateral frontal cortex impaired verbal recency judgements, the deficit being mild after right frontal lobectomy. Patients with right frontal-lobe removals showed the greatest impairment in recency discrimination on the two pictorial tests. The results provide evidence for hemispheric specialization related to the nature of the stimulus material and some support for a functional role for the left mid-lateral frontal cortex in verbal recency judgements.

[1]  K. Pribram,et al.  Information sources in the delayed alternation task for normal and “frontal” monkeys , 1977, Neuropsychologia.

[2]  Benton J. Underwood,et al.  Temporal Codes for Memories: Issues and Problems , 1976 .

[3]  M MISHKIN,et al.  Effects of small frontal lesions on delayed alternation in monkeys. , 1957, Journal of neurophysiology.

[4]  D. Schacter.  Memory, amnesia, and frontal lobe dysfunction , 1987, Psychobiology.

[5]  B. Milner.  Some cognitive effects of frontal-lobe lesions in man. , 1982, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[6]  J. Konorski.  A New Method of Physiological Investigation of Recent Memory in Animals , 1959 .

[7]  D. Kimura.  Right temporal-lobe damage. Perception of unfamiliar stimuli after damage. , 1963, Archives of neurology.

[8]  K H Pribram,et al.  Short-Term Memory, Parsing, and the Primate Frontal Cortex , 1967, Science.

[9]  T. Rasmussen,et al.  INTRACAROTID SODIUM AMYTAL FOR THE LATERALIZATION OF CEREBRAL SPEECH DOMINANCE; OBSERVATIONS IN 123 PATIENTS. , 1964, Journal of neurosurgery.

[10]  B. Milner,et al.  Interhemispheric differences in the localization of psychological processes in man. , 1971, British medical bulletin.

[11]  L. Stepien,et al.  THE EFFECT OF FOCAL LESIONS OF THE BRAIN UPON AUDITORY AND VISUAL RECENT MEMORY IN MAN , 1960, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[12]  R. A. Blum.  Effects of subtotal lesions of frontal granular cortex on delayed reaction in monkeys. , 1952, A.M.A. archives of neurology and psychiatry.

[13]  Arthur P. Shimamura,et al.  Memory for the temporal order of events in patients with frontal lobe lesions and amnesic patients , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[14]  D. Yntema,et al.  Recall as a search process , 1963 .

[15]  C Umiltà,et al.  Hemisphere‐dependent Cognitive Performances in Epileptic Patients , 1979, Epilepsia.

[16]  Brenda Milner,et al.  Visual recognition and recall after right temporal-lobe excision in man , 1968 .

[17]  H J Sagar,et al.  Recency and frequency discrimination in the amnesic patient H.M. , 1990, Brain : a journal of neurology.