Intrusion errors on the visual reproduction test of the wechsler memory scale and the wechsler memory scale - revised: An analysis of demented and amnesic patients

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Abstract
The number of prior-figure intrusion errors produced by patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), Huntington's disease (HD), alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (AK), bilateral hippocampal damage (HI-AMN) and elderly normal control subjects (NC) was assessed using the Visual Reproduction Test (VRT) of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) and the Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised (WMS-R). Patients with DAT made significantly more intrusion errors than did HD patients, although both of these patient groups generated more of these errors than did the intact control subjects. Patients with AK, but not HI-AMN patients, made significantly more intrusion errors than did NC subjects. Comparisons of the two versions of the VRT indicated that the WMS form was more likely to elicit intrusion errors from DAT and HD patients than was the WMS-R version. This reduced number of intrusion errors on the WMS-R may reflect a reduction in proactive interference due to the use of circular, as well as linear, geometric patterns.