A study of metamemory in amnesic and normal adults

This study explores metamemory in both amnesic and normal adult subjects. In this context metamemory is defined as an individual's knowledge about the functioning of memory in general rather than an individual's knowledge of their own memory. The amnesic patients were divided into those suffering from Korsakoff's Syndrome and a group suffering from amnesia as a result of presumed medial temporal damage. The analysis showed that both amnesic groups had poorer metamemory knowledge than controls but no difference between the amnesic groups was found. A analysis of concordance showed that the amnesic and control subjects were similar in terms of which questions they found either easy or difficult. A more refined analysis, however, showed that the amnesic groups differed most from controls on their knowledge of how strategies might improve memory. There was also evidence that the Korsakoff group lacked insight in contrast to the temporal lobe amnesics.