New semantic learning in amnesia: A review.

The ability of amnesic patients to learn new semantic information is a topic of research that has a renewed interest for about 10 years, in particular following Vargha-Khadem’s and collaborators’ (1997) works and the impact of these results both on our understanding of the relations between semantic and episodic memory and, from a clinical point of view, on the way to consider rehabilitation possibilities for these patients. This review aims to present what is known about this topic, by trying to respond to 4 different questions: What are the relations between episodic and semantic memory? Does the study of amnesic patients provide contributive data regarding this debate? Are these patients really able to learn new semantic information and, if so, to what extent? What is the nature of the knowledge that amnesic patients can acquire