Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA 92161;
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Nov 20;115(47):11947-11952. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1814843115. Epub 2018 Nov 5.
We explored the relationship between memory performance and conscious knowledge (or awareness) of what has been learned in memory-impaired patients with hippocampal lesions or larger medial temporal lesions. Participants viewed familiar scenes or familiar scenes where a change had been introduced. Patients identified many fewer of the changes than controls. Across all of the scenes, controls preferentially directed their gaze toward the regions that had been changed whenever they had what we term robust knowledge about the change: They could identify that a change occurred, report what had changed, and indicate where the change occurred. Preferential looking did not occur when they were unaware of the change or had only partial knowledge about it. The patients, overall, did not direct their gaze toward the regions that had been changed, but on the few occasions when they had robust knowledge about the change they (like controls) did exhibit this effect. Patients did not exhibit this effect when they were unaware of the change or had partial knowledge. The findings support the idea that awareness of what has been learned is a key feature of hippocampus-dependent memory.
我们探讨了记忆表现与有意识的知识（或意识）之间的关系，这些知识是在海马体损伤或更大的内侧颞叶损伤的记忆受损患者中学习到的。参与者观看熟悉的场景或熟悉的场景，其中引入了变化。患者识别的变化比对照组少得多。在所有场景中，当对照组对变化有我们所谓的强大知识时，他们会优先将目光投向发生变化的区域：他们可以识别出发生了变化，报告发生了什么变化，并指出变化发生的位置。当他们没有意识到变化或只有部分知识时，不会出现偏好性的注视。总体而言，患者不会将目光投向发生变化的区域，但在极少数情况下，当他们对变化有强烈的了解时，他们（像对照组一样）确实表现出了这种效果。当患者没有意识到变化或只有部分知识时，他们不会表现出这种效果。这些发现支持这样一种观点，即对所学内容的意识是海马体依赖记忆的一个关键特征。
