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Retrieval Without Recollection: an Experimental Analysis of Source Amnesia

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Retrieval Without Recollection: an Experimental Analysis of Source Amnesia JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 23, 593-611 (1984) Retrieval without Recollection: An Experimental Analysis of Source Amnesia DANIEL L. SCHACTER, JOANNE L. HARBLUK, AND DONALD R. MCLACHLAN University of Toronto Clinical observations suggest that patients with organic memory disorders sometimes exhibit the phenomenon of source amnesia: retrieval of experimentally presented infor- mation without any recollection of the episode in which it was acquired. To investigate source amnesia experimentally, a paradigm was developed in which either of two experi- menters read subjects statements about fictional characteristics of well-known and unknown people; retention of items and sources was tested after varying delays. In Experiment 1, a group of patients with severe memory disorders exhibited source amnesia frequently after retention intervals of just seconds or minutes: On nearly .40 of the trials that they retrieved a target item, patients failed to recollect that either of the sources had imparted it to them. Experiment 2 demonstrated that when normal subjects' level of item recall was equivalent to that of amnesics, they exhibited significantly less source amnesia: Normals rarely failed to recollect that a retrieved item derived from either of the two sources, although they often forgot which of the two experimenters was the correct source. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theories of normal and abnormal memory. © 1984 by Academic Press. Inc. In 1911, Clapar6de observed a curious the source of the retrieved information, and phenomenon in a case of organic amnesia instead claimed that it was merely an idea associated with alcoholic Korsakoff's syn- that had passed through her mind by drome. Like other amnesics, Clapar6de's chance. Indeed, the patient flatly denied patient exhibited a profound inability to re- that she had been read a story (1911/1951, call and recognize recently experienced p. 69). events. Clapar6de noted, however, that she We shall refer to the phenomenon exhib- sometimes retained information without ited by Clapar6de's patient as source am- any knowledge of how she had acquired it. nesia (Evans & Thorn, 1966): retrieval of For instance, after he read her a story, the experimentally presented information in patient could sometimes recall details of it the absence of a corresponding recollection when questioned a few minutes later. But of how it was acquired. A number of stu- she failed to recollect that Clapar6de was dents of organic memory disorders have re- ported observations of source amnesia that are similar to those described by Cla- This research was supported by a Special Research Program Grant from the Connaught Fund, University par6de. MacCurdy (1928), for example, of Toronto. Experiment 2 was conducted as part of a told several Korsakoff patients his name B.A. thesis completed by the second author under the and address. When tested several minutes supervision of the first author. We thank Jason Brandt, later, they chose the correct answers on a Neal Cohen, Morris Moscovitch, Larry Squire, and Endel Tulving for comments and discussion. We also multialternative forced-choice recognition thank Karen Hall and Renata Kirschbaum for exper- task, yet did not remember that MacCurdy imental assistance, and thank Carol A. Macdonald for was the source of the retained information. help with preparation of the manuscript. Joanne Har- Zubin (1948) observed that a patient ren- bluk is now at the Department of Psychology, Univer- dered temporarily amnesic by electrocon- sity of Western Ontario, London, Ontario. Requests vulsive therapy responded with above- for reprints should be addressed to Daniel L. Schacter, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, To- chance accuracy on a forced-choice test of ronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada. items presented prior to treatment, but 593 0022-5371/84 $3.00 Copyright © 1984 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 594 SCHACTER, HARBLUK, AND MC LACHLAN claimed that the materials had never been ploring the extent to which the phenom- shown to her previously. Luria (1976, pp. enon can be produced experimentally in 284-285) described a case of amnesia sec- subjects with intact memory function. ondary to a ruptured anterior communi- Before describing the paradigms that are cating artery aneurysm in which the patient used in the present experiments, it is first could learn a list of picture-word paired necessary to consider exactly what is associates, and could produce the correct meant by the term source amnesia. One of response when given the stimulus 2 days or the central characteristics of the phenom- 1 week after learning. The patient, how- enon is that in a situation in which memory ever, had no knowledge of how he acquired for two attributes of an event is probed, the information, and could not recollect the subjects demonstrate knowledge of one at- learning episode when asked about it even tribute but not the other. The remembered after a brief delay. attribute corresponds to a fact or item that More recently, Schacter, Tulving, and has been presented to the subject; the for- Wang (1981; described in Schacter & gotten one is the source of the recalled in- Tulving, 1982b) provided quantitative doc- formation. It is not uncommon in the study umentation of source amnesia in a case of intact human memory to encounter sit- study of a young man who had developed uations in which subjects are tested for re- a severe memory disorder after closed-head tention of multiple attributes of an event, injury. The patient was asked a series of and recall one or some of the to-be-remem- questions about little-known facts (e.g., bered attributes at the same time that they Who holds the world's record for shaking do not remember others. For example, An- hands? Theodore Roosevelt), and was told derson and Bower (1971) provided evi- the an'swer by the experimenter. Twenty dence that subjects can remember one at- minutes later, the patient recalled or rec- tribute of a sentence (a verb) even though ognized the correct answer for over half of they are unable to recall another (an ob- the items. However, given that he had re- ject). Jones (1976) reported an experiment tained a fact, the probability of remem- in which normal subjects studied photo- bering the source was only .11. On most graphs that depicted an object of a partic- trials, the patient either claimed that he had ular color in a specific location. When guessed the appropriate answer, or had tested by cued-recall methods, subjects oc- read about it in a newspaper or magazine. casionally remembered all or none of the By contrast, a matched control subject re- attributes. Frequently, however, they re- membered the source on all questions that called a particular attribute of an object he answered correctly. (e.g., color) and failed to recall another one There is a somewhat dramatic flavor to (e.g., location). Using a similar experi- the cited clinical descriptions and case mental paradigm, Jones (1979) has demon- studies of source amnesia that is probably strated that different attributes of a memory attributable to the fact that patients forget trace can be forgotten at different rates over so quickly the source of the newly acquired the course of a retention interval. information. But these observations of Further evidence for the occurrence of source amnesia have told us little about the partial attribute recall can be found in re- phenomenon other than that it can be ob- cent studies concerned with normal sub- served in some cases. The purpose of the jects' memory for the source of acquired present article is to provide a systematic information. Geiselman and Crawley (1983) experimental analysis of source amnesia by found that presence versus absence of prior examining some of its properties in a group knowledge of a source's personal history of memory-disordered patients, and by ex- did not affect subjects' recognition memory SOURCE AMNESIA 595 of sentences read by the source. Prior mals, they also forget different attributes at knowledge did, however, substantially aid different rates, then it would not be partic- subjects' ability to remember which of two ularly surprising that amnesics sometimes sources had read a particular sentence. The retain an experimentally presented fact and finding that level of source memory forget its source. On closer analysis, how- changed across conditions while level of ever, it is apparent that there may be an sentence memory remained constant sug- important difference between observations gests that there were at least some in- of source amnesia in memory-disordered stances in which subjects recognized a sen- patients and partial attribute recall in nor- tence but did not remember its source. In mals. Consider, for example, the Brown et a study by Rothkopf, Fisher, and Billington al. (1977) study of face recognition. One (1982), subjects watched three sources could claim that subjects in this experiment make a series of statements on either one exhibited "source amnesia": They retained or three television monitors. The number information about an experimentally pre- of monitors did not affect recall of state- sented item, as indicated by accurate face ments, but source recall was substantially recognition, but did not remember how it higher in the three-monitor condition than was acquired in the sense that they could in the one-monitor condition. Again, such not state accurately in which of two rooms a pattern of results implies that subjects a recognized face had been studied. But it sometimes did not remember the source of is probably not unreasonable to assume that recalled information. Similar evidence has these subjects could remember that a rec- also been reported in a study by Brown, ognized face had been encountered in one Deffenbacher, and Sturgill (1977).
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