Autobiographic memory: phenomenological aspects, personal semantic knowledge, generic events and characters (one case of pure retrograde memory recovery).

Tulving et al. [Brain Cogn 8 (1988) 3-20] proposed an operational distinction concerning memory between a semantic component consisting of general information about the individual's past and an episodic component, containing memories of specific events that can be situated in space and time. After a mild head trauma and in the context of professional troubles, patient FF displayed a pure retrograde amnesia concerning both his biographical identity and semantic memories. The patient could no longer access his memories. However, these did not seem completely lost since his answers to tests concerning historical events were better than random, his answers to a television quiz were automatic, he showed temporal transfer phenomena (ecmnesia) and since he retrieved the entirety of his memories within nine months. The patient FF illustrates the loss of retrograde autobiographic memory and the recovery of episodic memories, which requires three elements: a sense of subjective time, an autonoetic awareness (the ability to be aware of subjective time) and a "self" that can travel in subjective time.