Abstracts

Family Pictures (FP) is a subtest of the WMS-III that requires the examinee to verbally recall characters and their locations and activities from 4 visual scenes. FP is used with the Face Recognition subtest (FR) as a measure of visual memory. Previous research has suggested that FP may not be exclusively a visual memory measure because the task is verbally encodable. This study examined the extent to which FP is influenced by verbal skills and verbal memory in patients who underwent surgery for intractable epilepsy. It was hypothesized that FP would be related to verbal ability measures; FP would be related to verbal and visual memory measures; and the relationship between FP and verbal memory measures would be strongest in patients who underwent right (RT) vs left (LT) anterior temporal lobectomies, because patients may compensate for visual memory deficits by relying on verbal memory abilities., Patients underwent neuropsychological evaluations after undergoing RT ([italic]n [/italic]= 95), LT ([italic]n[/italic] = 94), or extratemporal lobectomies ([italic]n[/italic] = 28). Exclusion criteria included IQ [lt] 70, questionable effort, and left-handedness without Wada confirmation of left-hemisphere language dominance. Groups did not differ on demographic or seizure variables. Analyses included correlations, stepwise regressions and exploratory factor analyses to examine the relationships between FP and verbal ability measures (Verbal Comprehension [VC], verbal fluency, and naming), FR, and WMS-III verbal memory measures (recall of short stories [SS] and word pairs [WP])., A regression revealed that FP was related to VC and verbal fluency. FP correlated highest with SS (.51), then FR (.43), and finally WP (.36). Regression also revealed that FP was related to verbal (SS) and visual (FR) memory measures. A factor analysis of memory variables yielded 2 factors: verbal memory (SS, WP, secondary loading of FP) and visual memory (FR, primary loading of FP). When separate analyses were performed for RT and LT groups, regression findings did not change. A factor analysis in the RT group yielded the same 2 factors as above, but FP had a primary loading on the verbal memory factor and secondary loading on the visual memory factor. The LT group yielded 3 factors: verbal memory (WP, primary loading of SS), verbal/visual memory (FP, secondary loading of SS) and visual memory (FR)., FP is not a pure visual memory measure but is also related to verbal abilities and verbal memory. This is particularly true in RT patients, possibly due to compensation for visual memory deficits. Because FP is not a pure measure of visual memory, it may not be sensitive to lateralized brain dysfunction and may have limited utility in predicting memory decline after surgery. A purer measure of visual memory is clearly needed.,