Temporal Perception Disorder and its Influence on Memory: A Case Study of a Patient with Frontal Lobe Lesion

The cognitive mechanisms of the episodic memory allow a person to travel through time. These mechanisms that are related to the future compose the so-called prospective memory. The main objective of this work was to verify whether it is possible to dissociate neurocognitive mechanisms of the working memory from those of the prospective memory by using a case study with frontal lesion, presenting failures in time perception and memory disorders. Based on the Ellis model, the patient was tested using both a frontal lobe battery and an Einstein and Daniel's task. The results showed that the failures did not affect attentional resources required for the execution of complex actions, but decreased the self-driven mechanisms such as the notion of time, intentionality and decision making. Following the model, the patient had specific failures in the activation of intentions and in the supervision process. These failures suggest that both the working memory and the prospective memory may have different neuropsychological attributes.