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The recollection deficit in amnesia is critically linked to the confusion of temporal context of items in memory

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Radek Ptak¹ (); ¹Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, ²Division of Neurorehabilitation, University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Introduction: According to the two-process model, recognition memory relies on recollection and familiarity. While amnesia is typically associated with impaired recollection and preserved familiarity, some amnesic individuals display disorientation and excessive false recognitions, suggesting both reduced recollection and aberrantly increased familiarity. Impaired orientation has been shown to reflect a failure to distinguish the temporal context of items encoded in memory. Methods: Seventeen individuals with amnesia (oriented or disoriented) and 20 healthy controls completed two recognition memory sessions. Each session included two runs of 120 images, eight of which were repeated five times. The second run comprised: (a) items repeated within that run (targets2), (b) items repeated within the first run (targets1), (c) nonrepeated items from the first run (distracters1), and (d) new items (distracters2). In the exclusion condition, participants identified as “old” only items repeated within the second run. In the inclusion condition, they also identified items previously presented in the first run. Results: Healthy controls and oriented amnesics showed reduced “old” responses to targets1 and distracters1 in the exclusion versus inclusion condition. In contrast, disoriented amnesics produced similar rates of false recognitions in the exclusion condition as hits in the inclusion condition. Process estimates indicated impaired recollection in both amnesic groups, with disoriented patients performing significantly worse than oriented ones. Familiarity remained comparable across groups. Conclusions: Recollection is significantly impaired in amnesia, whereas familiarity appears preserved. Disorientation further exacerbates recollection deficits, implying that temporal context confusion may constitute an additional factor influencing recollection-based memory processes.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic