Human Organic Memory Disorders

After first considering the problems involved in assessing memory, Professor Mayes provisionally advances a taxonomy of elementary memory disorders and, for each in turn, reviews both the specific processes that are disrupted and the lesions responsible for the disruption. These disorders include short-term memory deficits, deficits in previously well-established memory, memory deficits caused by frontal lobe lesions, the organic amnesias, and disorders of conditioning and skill acquisition. Mayes argues that the memory deficits found in several neurological and psychiatric syndromes comprise concurring elementary memory disorders. Finally, he outlines the implications of his taxonomy for our understanding of normal memory.