Effects of self-generation and emotionality of material on verbal memory in unilateral brain-damaged and normal adults.
Item
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Title
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Effects of self-generation and emotionality of material on verbal memory in unilateral brain-damaged and normal adults.
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Identifier
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AAI9720074
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identifier
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9720074
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Creator
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Berrin Wasserman, Stacy.
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Contributor
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Advisers: Joan C. Borod | Wilma A. Winnick
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Cognitive | Biology, Neuroscience | Psychology, Physiological
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Abstract
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Memory performance was studied in two patient groups, one right- and one left-brain-damaged, and in one group of normal controls. The focus was on the effects of emotionality of words and on the generation of sentences from these words. Influences of these variables were examined on free recall, recognition, and cued recall performance. Of secondary interest in this study were the effects of stimulus valence (positive vs. negative), gender, and intrahemispheric lesion site. Processes called upon during the study phase of this experiment were considered to be deficient in our patient groups and to differ according to laterality of lesion. Based on expectations for patients with right hemisphere damage (RBD) to have deficits in emotional processing, it was predicted that such patients would exhibit less of a memory-enhancing effect from stimulus emotionality than patients with left hemisphere damage (LBD) and normal controls. Based on expectations for patients with LBD to have deficits in verbal fluency and memory, it was predicted that such patients would not exhibit the memory-enhancing effects of sentence generation that were expected of normal controls and patients with RBD.;The groups were tested for memory of single words and sentences which differed in stimulus type (positive, negative, neutral) and in learning condition (read vs. generate). Overall, there were significant performance effects of emotionality (better memory for emotional than neutral words) and sentence generation (words were better remembered when they were the basis for sentence generation than when they were presented in the sentence framework). Since these effects occurred in all three groups, the predictions based on laterality were not confirmed. In addition, a two-way interaction indicated that memory enhancement for emotional material was stronger under sentence-reading than under sentence generating conditions, and that effects of sentence generation were stronger for neutral material than for emotional material. This interaction was greater in the brain-damaged groups and is described as a suppressive phenomenon resulting from competing demands of arousal. Gender, frontal lobe damage, and temporal lobe damage also influenced results and should be investigated in future studies of these memory-enhancing phenomena.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
