Amnesia

I have long been interested in which psychological functions are preserved in those with profound amnesia. Notably, they appear able to acquire emotion-based material from their interactions with others (remembering whether someone is liked or disliked) despite having no episodic recollection of meeting them. In this series of papers we report examples of the most complex forms of such emotion based learning ever reported (on the Iowa Gambling Task), in stroke and Alzheimer's disease. We also speculate on the implications for this process in the domain of psychotherapy, including the nature of the theraputic relationship, and its reliance on different memory systems....

Turnbull & Evans (2006) reports a patient, profoundly amnesic after poster cerebral artery stroke, who retains complex emotion-based learning.

Turnbull et al (2006) reports a profoundly amnesic patient in psychotherapy, who nevertheless developed several elements of emotional relationship with his psycotherapist over a number of sessions.

Evans-Roberts & Turnbull (2011) reports a patient with dementia,again profoundly amnesic, who again retains complex emotion-based learning.