Long-term memory in high-functioning autism: controversy on episodic memory in autism reconsidered.

Two studies were conducted to examine the nature of verbal long-term memory (LTM) in people with autism. In Study 1, undergraduate students showed better LTM and more verbal associations for concrete than abstract nouns. Probability of recall of the nouns strongly correlated with the number of associations with those nouns. In Study 2, unlike controls, autistic subjects did not show superior recall of concrete over abstract nouns despite overall comparable performance. A highly significant correlation between probability of recall and associative value was found only in the controls. Furthermore, there was an unusual correlation between LTM performance and a nonverbal measure in the autistic group. The results were discussed in terms of the relation between episodic memory and semantic memory.