Lexical acquisition in alcoholic Korsakoff psychosis

Recent studies have underlined the importance of the distinction between "declarative" and "procedural" aspects of memory functioning. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the relative deficits in these two aspects of anterograde memory in an amnesic population with midline diencephalic lesions, and to determine whether this apparently fundamental distinction in memory types is honored even under real-world conditions. Eight alcoholic Korsakoff patients were examined for their lexical acquisition capacity, including both their application of word-learning procedures to a new lexical domain and their eventual recall of the facts represented by the new word. The findings revealed that each Korsakoff patient successfully applies at least some of the procedures subserving the word-learning process to the new lexical domain. By comparison, the Korsakoff patients subsequently acquire little of the factual knowledge represented by the new word. Specifically, almost all of the patients recognize only the object used during the exposure period to demonstrate the new word. Quantitative and qualitative features of the patients' declarative and procedural memory deficits are discusses in the context of real-world processing advantages and limitations.