[Demonstration of Dissociation Between Frontal and Temporal Lesions in Man on Two Versions of Delayed Non-matching Recognition Tests Used in Monkeys]

11 patients with frontal lobe lesions (F group), 9 patients with temporal lobe lesions (T group) and 18 normal control subjects (C group) were tested on two versions of the delayed non matching-to-sample task using either different pairs (DNMTS) or the same pairs of objects (RECURRENT) on successive test trials. The results revealed that the DNMTS task was sensitive to memory impairment but did not differentiate the two experimental groups. In contrast, the recurrent version of the task showed a dissociation between the two pathologies. Thus, whereas patients of group T exhibited an accelerated rate of forgetting as a function of the retention interval, patients of group F were impaired whatever the retention interval.