Long-term retention of transient news events.

Many retrospective analyses of remote memory have demonstrated recency effects in that memory for events proximal to the time of testing is superior to memory for events from remote time periods. However, the rate at which information decays over time and the specific pattern of forgetting may vary depending upon the distinct attributes of stimuli used as indices of memory. Studies examining long-term forgetting of well rehearsed, conceptually integrated information underscore preservation of remote events, some of which are thought to be permanently stored in memory. A different pattern of forgetting emerges in relation to recall of discrete facts whereby recall declines according to a negatively accelerated decay curve. In the current study long-term retention of transient news events was examined. Results were examined in relation to the effects of age and sex. All age groups demonstrated recency effects in that events from the recent past were recalled better than remote events. Age did not exert a negative influence on recall of remote or recent events with the exception of younger participants who did not recall items predating their dates of birth. Older female participants were less adept at recalling very old events than their male counterparts.

Right hemisphere dysfunction in ADHD: visual hemispatial inattention and clinical subtype.

The relationship between right hemisphere dysfunction and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remains controversial. We administered a random letter cancellation test to 58 carefully selected adult patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for ADHD and 29 age- and education-matched controls. Patients with ADHD had a higher mean omission rate on the left side than the controls, and a greater percentage of ADHD patients than controls made more omissions on the left than on the right (L > R errors). ADHD patients who made L > R errors had lower performance IQ scores than ADHD patients who did not make L > R errors. However, ADHD patients who made L > R errors did not differ from ADHD patients who did not make L > R errors in ADHD subtype, medication response, or neuropsychological measures of attention, executive function, verbal memory, nonverbal memory, or academic achievement. Patients without a family history of ADHD were more likely to make L > R errors than patients with a family history of ADHD. This study provides support for the concept of right hemisphere dysfunction in a subset of patients with ADHD. However, ADHD patients who make L > R errors do not appear to represent a distinct clinical subgroup in terms of medication response, ADHD subtype, or neuropsychological test performance.

MMPI/MMPI-2: comparisons of amnesic patients.

The amnesic population provides a unique opportunity to examine the reliability of clinical tests because amnesics do not consciously recollect initial testing sessions. In this study, amnesic subjects were studied to examine the reliability between the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the MMPI-2. Findings indicated that there were no statistical differences between versions of the MMPI and further revealed that many of the scales were significantly correlated. Amnesic patients produced elevated scores on subscales two (depression) and eight (schizophrenia), not unlike various other groups of neurologically impaired individuals. This indicates that MMPI and MMPI-2 scores in these patient populations may reflect the medical and psychosocial effects of brain damage rather than premorbid personality dysfunction. A close evaluation of amnesics' performance, in conjunction with the critical items they endorsed, offers insight into the personality traits of the amnesic patient population. The relative stability of performance across personality tests administered over several weeks is relevant to the formation and stability of the amnesic's concept of self.