Recall of spatial location by the amnesic patient H.M

The amnesic patient H.M. was tested for immediate recall of the location of objects in an array. Three array-sizes were used: 16, 7, or 4 objects. With 16 objects, H.M.'s performance was at chance level; with the smaller arrays, his performance was above chance, but still well below the levels achieved by age-matched control subjects. The ability to recall location by H.M. did not differ under incidental and intentional learning conditions, thus failing to support the notion that automatic encoding skills may be selectively disrupted in amnesia.