Gist recall in temporal lobe seizure patients (a study of adaptive memory skills).
This study investigates the capacity of lateralized temporal lobe seizure patients to process and retain complex narrative information, to recall the most important elements of verbal material, and to make effective use of mnemonic strategies during a brief study period to improve performance. Compared to normal controls, both left and right temporal lobe samples recall significantly less information on both immediate and post-study trials. In addition seizure patients, particularly left temporal subjects, engaged in fewer active learning strategies and produced more instances of major distortion. However, despite their reduced efficiency in total recall, seizure patients, like control subjects, do tend to remember a higher proportion of important idea units and a smaller proportion of details. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research which documented memory monitoring failures in temporal lobe seizure patients, and in terms of the development of adaptive memory skills to circumvent memory deficits.