A “purest” impairment of verbal short term memory. The case of PV and the phonological short-term input store

PV was fully right-handed on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, and had two right-handed sons, though a cousin was left-handed. In February 1977, PV, at the age of 26, suffered a stroke with a transient loss of consciousness. In the November 1977 assessment and study reported by Basso et al., PV was first given the Standard Language Examination of the Aphasia Unit of the University of Milano. This showed a few phonemic paraphasias, and difficulties in finding the appropriate word, within a fluent expression. Specifically, in spontaneous speech, PV made a few phonological errors. The impairment of short-term memory (STM) of auditory-verbal material was very selective. Verbal long-term episodic memory, as assessed by learning of meaningful material, and visuo-spatial STM, and long-term visuo-spatial episodic learning and retention were entirely preserved. Patients with a deficit of auditory-verbal STM in free recall show a reduced recency effect, confined to the last item of the list, with auditory presentation of the stimuli.