Amnesia and the Generic Image *

Abstract

It is pointed out that the fate of generic images has been studied little, if at all, in amnesias of organic origin. Observations are described in a case of alcoholic Korsakoff psychosis which appear to indicate that generic images are subject to Ribot's Law of Regression. The patient, a spinster of 57, with some talent for drawing, was asked to represent a number of objects, e.g. a woman dressed in the latest fashions, which might reasonably be regarded as, “generic” in nature. These drawings suggested that the patient's generic images were, in some cases at least, appropriate to an earlier period of her personal history. In general, this ante-dating effect was in good correspondence with the scope of the retrograde amnesia. Some implications of these findings for the psychological theory of memory are briefly discussed.