Amnesia
Definition
Amnesia refers to partial or total loss of memory, typically resulting from brain injury, trauma, or illness.
Analogy
Consider amnesia like a power outage in your house. Just like how you can't access electricity during an outage, someone with amnesia can't access their stored memories due to some disruption in their brain function.
Related terms
Anterograde Amnesia: An inability to form new memories following a traumatic event.
Retrograde Amnesia: Loss of memory-access to events that occurred before an instance of trauma or disease.
Memory Consolidation: The process by which our brains convert short-term memories into long-term ones.
"Amnesia" appears in:
Study guides (1)
Practice Questions (9)
What type of amnesia prevents individuals from forming new explicit memories?
What type of amnesia occurs when an individual cannot remember events occurring after a traumatic event?
Which type of amnesia causes loss of ability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia?
What type of amnesia involves an inability to recall past experiences?
Which study design would effectively test the impact of amnesia on implicit memory functions?
What type of amnesia affects the ability to recall events prior to an accident or injury?
What kind of amnesia results from damage to the hippocampus?
What kind of amnesia results from damage to the hippocampus that prevents a person from creating new memories?
Which type of amnesia would be most likely to affect a prizefighter who suffered a severe blow to the head during a match?
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