Definition
Verbal memory is a rather broad concept that refers to memory for verbally presented information. There are a variety of tasks for measuring verbal memory capability, including learning of word lists, story recall (or logical memory), and learning of sequences of paired words. In list learning, the subject is required to recall an auditorily presented word list immediately or several minutes after the list presentation. The former recall condition is referred to as “immediate recall” and the latter as “delayed recall.” With story recall, the subject listens to a short story and is asked to tell anything about the story under immediate and delayed (usually 30 min) recall conditions. In paired word learning, a sequence of word pairs is presented and recall of the second word of each pair is demanded when the tester utters each of the first words. As these tasks suggest, verbal memory primarily indicates acquisition or registration of memory for spoken materials.
Characteristics
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Squire LR (1987) Memory and brain. Oxford University Press, New York
Tulving E (1983) Elements of episodic memory. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Scoville WB, Milner B (1957) Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 20(1):11–21
Tatsumi IF, Senda M, Ishii K, Mishina M, Oyama M, Toyama H, Oda K, Tanaka M, Gondo Y (2000) Brain regions responsible for word retrieval, speech production and deficient word-fluency in elderly people: A PET activation study. Proc ICSLP 2000 2:5–10
Snowden JS, Goulding PJ, Neary D (1989) Semantic dementia: a form of circumscribed cerebral atrophy. Behav Neurol 2:167–182
Hodges JR, Patterson K, Oxbury S, Funnell E (1992) Semantic dementia: Progressive fluent aphasia with temporal lobe atrophy. Brain 115:1783–1806
Mummery CJ, Patterson K, Price CJ, Ashburner J, Frackowiak RS, Hodges JR (2000) A voxel-based morphometry study of semantic dementia: relationship between temporal lobe atrophy and semantic memory. Ann Neurol 47(1):36–45
Warrington EK, McCarthy R (1983) Category specific access dysphasia. Brain 106:859–878
Caramazza A, Mahon BZ (2003) The organization of conceptual knowledge: the evidence from category-specific semantic deficits. TRENDS Cog Sci 7(8):354–361
Nickels L (2003) Rehabilitation of Spoken Word Production in Aphasia. Aphasiology 16 (10 and 11):935–979
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg
About this entry
Cite this entry
Tatsumi, I.F., Watanabe, M. (2009). Verbal Memory. In: Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (eds) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_6266
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_6266
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23735-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-29678-2
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences