Amnesic patients can benefit from instructions to use imagery: evidence against the cognitive mediation hypothesis

Six bi-temporal amnesics and seven Korsakoff patients were compared on paired associate learning under four different conditions, rote learning, images provided, images self generated, and verbal mediation. Both imagery manipulations produced better learning than either rote learning or verbal mediation but the latter two conditions did not differ. The data are interpreted as arguing against an interpretation of amnesia in terms of cognitive mediation. The two patient groups behaved similarly in the experiment, thus suggesting that immediate recall of paired-associates learning does not differentiate different forms of organic amnesia.