Butters N, Wolfe J, Martone M, Granholm E, Cermak L S
Neuropsychologia. 1985;23(6):729-43. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(85)90080-6.
Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the hypothesis that the memory disorders of Huntington's Disease (HD) patients are characterized by deficiencies in both retrieval mechanisms and the acquisition of procedural (skill-based) information. In the first study, verbal recall and recognition tests were administered to HD patients, amnesics and normal control (NC) subjects. Although the two patient groups were impaired relative to NC subjects on both recall and recognition of word lists, the performance of the HD patients was superior to that of the amnesics on the recognition test. In the second experiment early HD (EHD), advanced HD (AHD), amnesic and NC subjects were compared in the acquisition of the 'Tower of Hanoi' puzzle. Both the NC subjects and EHD patients acquired the solution of this puzzle after repeated trials, whereas the AHD and amnesic patients evidenced little improvement. However, on a recognition test assessing memory for facts about the puzzle, both the EHD and AHD patients were superior to the amnesic subjects. These results are consistent with the retrieval hypothesis but are equivocal with regard to the HD patients' proposed deficit in skill learning. Since the 'Tower' puzzle may rely heavily on both problem solving and skill learning capabilities, it may be of limited value in searching for double dissociations between patient groups and the acquisition of skill-based and data-based knowledge.
进行了两项实验，以评估亨廷顿舞蹈症（HD）患者的记忆障碍具有检索机制缺陷和程序性（基于技能的）信息获取缺陷这一假设。在第一项研究中，对HD患者、遗忘症患者和正常对照（NC）受试者进行了言语回忆和识别测试。尽管相对于NC受试者，两个患者组在单词列表的回忆和识别方面均受损，但HD患者在识别测试中的表现优于遗忘症患者。在第二项实验中，对早期HD（EHD）、晚期HD（AHD）、遗忘症患者和NC受试者在学习“河内塔”谜题方面进行了比较。NC受试者和EHD患者在反复试验后都学会了解决这个谜题，而AHD患者和遗忘症患者几乎没有进步。然而，在一项评估对谜题相关事实记忆的识别测试中，EHD患者和AHD患者都优于遗忘症受试者。这些结果与检索假设一致，但关于HD患者在技能学习方面的假定缺陷则模棱两可。由于“河内塔”谜题可能严重依赖于问题解决和技能学习能力，因此在寻找患者组与基于技能和基于数据的知识获取之间的双重分离方面可能价值有限。
