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Drawing improves memory in patients with hippocampal damage

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Abstract

The hippocampus plays a critical role in the formation of declarative memories, and hippocampal damage leads to significant impairments in new memory formation. Drawing can serve as a form of multi-modal encoding that improves declarative memory performance relative to other multimodal encoding strategies such as writing. We examined whether, and to what extent, patients with hippocampal damage could benefit from the mnemonic strategy of drawing. Three patients with focal hippocampal damage, and one patient with both hippocampal and cortical lesions, in addition to 22 age-, sex-, and education-matched controls, were shown a list of words one at a time during encoding and instructed to either draw a picture or repeatedly write each word for 40 s. Following a brief filled delay, free recall and recognition memory for words from both encoding trial types were assessed. Controls showed enhanced recall and recognition memory for words drawn versus those that were written, an effect that was even more pronounced in patients with focal hippocampal damage. By contrast, the patient with both hippocampal and cortical lesions showed no drawing-mediated boost in either recall or recognition memory. These findings demonstrate that drawing is an effective encoding strategy, likely accruing from the engagement of extra-hippocampal processes including the integration of cortical-based motor, visual, and semantic processing, enabling more elaborative encoding.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Patricia Aguiar for her assistance in data collection.

Funding

This study was funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) to A.L., by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada discovery grant #378291 to A.G, and discovery grant #03917 to M.F., as well as by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant #PJT175159 to A.G.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Hospital, 3560 Bathurst St., North York, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada

    A. Levi, A. Pugsley & A. Gilboa

  2. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    A. Levi, A. Pugsley & G. R. Turner

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. A. Fernandes

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    A. Gilboa

  5. Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    A. Gilboa

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  1. A. Levi
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Appendix

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Table 6 Words used in the Drawing and Writing conditions:
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Levi, A., Pugsley, A., Fernandes, M.A. et al. Drawing improves memory in patients with hippocampal damage. Mem Cogn (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-023-01505-4

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