A technique for promoting robust free recall in chronic organic amnesia

A learning technique was developed for chronically amnesic subjects which linked word-list items in a novel manner utilizing ridiculously-imaged-stories (RIS). By the 8th week of once-weekly 45 minute training sessions with RIS the five amnesic subjects were able to freely recall an average of 14 items from a 20-item list after a 1-week interval, but showed minimal recall after the same interval of another 20-word list that had been concurrently learned in a cued, modified free-recall condition. The effective RIS technique producing this robust recall combines stimuli embedded in a novel-arousing context with high-imagery, storyline, cuing, and spaced repetition. The net effect of this technique is interpreted as providing artificial "chunks" that can be encoded and transferred relatively normally into long-term memory.