Writing #3

Hollywood has consistently persuaded the public, myself included, that there is only one type of amnesia through various films and television shows. Prior to reading Chapter 7 of the textbook I had not known that "general" amnesia was very rare and that retrograde (in which people cannot remember items of their past) and anterograde amnesia (when people lose the ability to form new memories) are much more common. One of Hollywood's mainstream films, "50 First Date", starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler deals with anterograde amnesia. After Barrymore's character is in a car accident, she can no longer remember her accident or anything that occurred after the accident after a day's time. Her family fails to explain what happened to her day after day up until she meets Sandler's character and he proceeds to tell her everyday what happened to her and who he is. Barrymore's anterograde amnesia is unrealistic because there is no such form of anterograde amnesia in which one can recall information and then lose it the next day. It is also unrealistic because she remembers what happened to her each time after she is told. According to the text memory recovery tends to occur gradually, if at all, unlike Barrymore's character who seems to recall things after being told or viewing a video that her family has made for her to watch everyday. However, the film shows another aspect of amnesia with Ten Second Tom, a patient at the institute for those who have memory loss. Tom has extreme memory loss in which he can forgets things after ten seconds. The textbook does not say if this is possible and I could not find anything related to repeat memory loss in seconds, but I assume tom's case is fictional just as Barrymore's type of anterograde amnesia is.