Short-term memory for duration and distance in humans: Role of the hippocampus

Control participants and hypoxic participants with bilateral hippocampal damage were tested for short-term memory (STM) for presentation duration of a single object, STM for a single object, STM for spatial distance information. and time estimation. Delays of 1, 4, 8, 12, or 16 s were used for all the STM and time estimation tests. Results indicated that relative to controls, hypoxic participants were significantly impaired for STM for duration and distance information at the long but not short delays. Similarly, time estimation was accurate only to 8 s for hypoxic participants, but STM for a single object was only mildly affected. Results suggest that the hippocampus may be required for the processing of spatial and temporal STM information.