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Supplementary Material: Results using additional memory tasks
Method
Measures
Famous Events Test. The Famous Events Test (Graham, Pratt, & Hodges, 1998, as
updated by Milton et al., 2010) consisted of 84 actual events (e.g., the Moorgate tube
disaster) interspersed with 69 fictitious events. Participants generated a yes/no recognition
score for each event. Recognized events were assigned a decade and additional details.
Events were deemed to be correctly dated if they fell in the decade assigned by the
participant. For detail scores, a score of two points was given for clear and detailed
descriptions of events, one point if some detail was generated, and 0 points for no correct
information.
Famous Faces Test. The Famous Faces Test consisted of a set of 168 faces,
presented in 42 sets of four (based on a sub-set of the materials used in Milton et al., 2010).
In each set of four there was one famous face and three non-famous faces. Participants were
asked to identify the famous person in each set, and generate a name and some details about
that person. A score of two points was given for a clear and accurate description, one point
for partial information, and 0 points if no correct information was generated.
New Words Acquisition Test. The New Words Acquisition Test (Milton et al., 2010)
comprised 42 words that had entered common usage across the last seven decades (six words
in each decade, e.g., diskette, yuppie, wi-fi). In the recall phase, participants were asked to
provide a definition for each word. A score of two points was awarded for a clear and
accurate definition, with one point awarded for a partially correct definition, and 0 points for
an incorrect definition. Finally, participants were presented with a recognition test in which
the correct definition of each word was presented alongside three plausible but incorrect
definitions.
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Results
Famous Events Test
In 2011, LK correctly recognized 42 (44 ‘yes’ responses minus two false positives)
out of a possible 84 famous events (proportional recognition score = 0.5), and for 35 of these
events he was able to generate accurate details (proportional details score = 0.42). He
correctly dated (e.g., within the correct decade) 33 events (proportional dating score = 0.39).
In 2012 LK’s performance improved, as demonstrated by a proportional recognition score of
0.71, a proportional details score of 0.57, and a proportional dating score 0.51. Control
participants correctly recognized a mean proportion of 0.66 of events (SD = 0.12), generated
accurate details for a mean proportion of 0.44 of all events (SD = 0.20), and correctly dated a
mean proportion of 0.37 of all events (SD = 0.19). Thus, in summary, LK’s famous event
scores went from below average in 2011 (particularly for event recognition – he performed
similarly to controls in terms of details and dating) to better than average in 2012.
To provide a more detailed analysis of LK’s Famous Event memory over time, scores
were broken down by decade (following Milton et al., 2010) and proportion accuracy scores
by decade are shown in the three panels of Figure 1. These panels show LK's performance in
2011 and 2012 compared to controls for famous event recognition accuracy (upper panel),
famous event dating accuracy (middle panel), and famous event detail accuracy (lower
panel). The data presented in Figure 1 suggest that LK’s performance at recognizing, dating,
and generating accurate details for famous events improved uniformly between 2011 and
2012.
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Figure 1: Performance in Famous Events Task by decade (upper panel shows recognition
accuracy, middle panel shows dating accuracy, lower panel shows details accuracy) in
controls, LK in 2011, and LK in 2012 (Error bars show standard error)
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Famous Faces Test
LK’s score on the Famous Faces test rose from 0.57 (48 points out of a possible 84) in
2011 to 0.65 (55 out of 84) in 2012. Controls (based on five control participants as one did
not take part due to experimenter error) recognized a proportional mean of 0.57 (SD = 0.16).
Results indicate that LK performed at a normal level in 2011 and improved on his score in
2012.
New Words Acquisition Test
In 2011, LK’s proportion correct score for the free recall stage of the New Words
Acquisition Test was 0.42 (35 out of a possible 84), with a recognition score of 0.71 (30 out
of a possible 42). In 2012, LK’s free recall score rose to 0.80 proportion correct (67/84) and
his recognition score was 0.93 (39/42). By comparison, controls had a mean proportion
correct recall score of 0.65 (SD = 0.18) and a mean proportion correct recognition score of
0.85 (SD = 0.07). Thus, as in the Famous Events Task, LK performed below average
compared to controls in 2011, and above average in 2012. LK’s improvement between 2011
and 2012 is perhaps most striking at the individual word level. For example, in 2011, LK did
not recall or recognise definitions of the terms ‘yuppie, ‘tank top’ or ‘speed dating’. In 2012
however, LK gave clear and correct definitions in the free recall phase (e.g., Yuppie: “Young,
upwardly mobile professional person, 1980s”; Tank top: “Thin, sleeveless jumper”). It should
be noted that many of the words LK corrected recalled in 2012 were not correctly recognised
in 2011, thus the improvements shown do not merely reflect potential use of the recognition
element of the 2011 task as a learning exercise.
As in the Famous Events Task, the words within the New Words Acquisition Task
were divided into discrete decades (e.g., ‘Yuppie’ for 1980s, ‘Wi-Fi’ for 2000s). The data
were converted into the proportion of words correctly recalled in each decade. These data are
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shown in Table 1, indicating LK’s marked improvement in knowledge of word definitions,
particularly those from the 1950s, 1960s and 1990s.
Table 1: Proportion of words correctly recalled by decade in Control group, LK 2011 and LK
2012 in New Word Acquisition Test
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
LK 2011
0.42
0.33
0.25
0.58
0.58
0.08
0.67
LK 2012
0.58
0.83
0.83
0.83
0.92
0.58
1.0
Control
0.58 (0.15) 0.67 (0.21) 0.64 (0.27) 0.60 (0.34) 0.86 (0.13) 0.58 (0.13) 0.65 (0.23)
Mean (SD)
References
Graham K. S., Pratt K. H., & Hodges J. R. (1998). A reverse temporal gradient for public
events in a single case of semantic dementia. Neurocase, 4, 461–70.
Milton, F., Muhlert, N., Pindus, D., Butler, C. R., Kapur, N., Graham, K. S., & Zeman, A. Z.
J. (2010). Remote memory deficits in transient epileptic amnesia. Brain, 133, 13681379.