People can have brain damage where their memory is impaired, but only when trying to identify certain types of categories. For example, some patients with brain damage from encephalitis were able to remember non-animal objects (i.e. furniture and tools) but were not able to identify animals.

Category-specific memory impairment 

A form of memory loss where knowledge of all concepts is affected (regardless of category). Patients are typically equally bad at distinguishing living things and animals.

Semantic dementia

- Category-specific memory impairment
- Semantic dementia

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Brain damage
- Evolution (errors seen in the general population)

Causes of memory errors and impairment

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

Memory Errors and Impairment (from brain damage) 

- Source-monitoring error (source misattribution)
- Pragmatic inferences
- Misinformation effect

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