Cued recall and the nature of the memory disorder in dementia.

The study investigated the retrieval deficit hypothesis of forgetting in senile dementia, using a cued recall technique. Memory for lists of words was tested with either no cues given at the time of recall, or alternatively by cueing the patient either with the word's first letter or its semantic category. Results do not support a retrieval deficit explanation of forgetting in dementia, but instead suggest the possibility of a processing deficit at the acquisition stage.