50 First Dates
“50 First Dates”
In the movie, Lucy Whitmore, an art teacher living in Hawaii, is involved in a horrible car accident which causes severe brain damage to her temporal lobe, or more specifically, the area containing her hippocampus. This area of the brain is crucial in forming new memories. The brain damage causes Lucy to suffer from short-term memory loss. On the subject of psychology, this movie has accurately demonstrated characteristics of someone who has suffered damage to the hippocampus region.
Lucy meets Henry Roth, an aquarium veterinarian, in a café one morning and they fall in love, so they decide to meet again. The next day, Henry comes to the cafe and starts talking to her, but she doesn’t recognize him. Sue, a café waitress, explains that Lucy has anterograde amnesia, a.k.a. “Goldfield Syndrome”, from a car accident several months ago. While this disease is completely fictional, anterograde amnesia is a real know disease. Anterograde amnesia is when one can no longer form long-term memories that have occurred after a specific event, such as the car accident. So while all of Lucy’s memories gained or experienced prior to the accident are intact such as her childhood, people’s names, who she is, and where she lives, everything learned and experienced after is a completely “new” experience to her even if she encounters it daily. Lucy cannot recall anything between the day of the accident and the present. At night, while sleeping, all of her memories of the day are erased. Lucy wakes up every day believing it is October 13th, 2002 which is her father’s birthday. October 13th was the day she, her mother, and her father got in a car accident in town. Lucy’s belief that it is still October 13th causes her to accomplish her daily tasks that she had planned for that day.
Lucy’s father, Marlin, and brother, Doug, take care to re-enact the same events to prevent Lucy from learning about her accident. They were afraid that if she knew, not only would she have
In the movie, Lucy Whitmore, an art teacher living in Hawaii, is involved in a horrible car accident which causes severe brain damage to her temporal lobe, or more specifically, the area containing her hippocampus. This area of the brain is crucial in forming new memories. The brain damage causes Lucy to suffer from short-term memory loss. On the subject of psychology, this movie has accurately demonstrated characteristics of someone who has suffered damage to the hippocampus region.
Lucy meets Henry Roth, an aquarium veterinarian, in a café one morning and they fall in love, so they decide to meet again. The next day, Henry comes to the cafe and starts talking to her, but she doesn’t recognize him. Sue, a café waitress, explains that Lucy has anterograde amnesia, a.k.a. “Goldfield Syndrome”, from a car accident several months ago. While this disease is completely fictional, anterograde amnesia is a real know disease. Anterograde amnesia is when one can no longer form long-term memories that have occurred after a specific event, such as the car accident. So while all of Lucy’s memories gained or experienced prior to the accident are intact such as her childhood, people’s names, who she is, and where she lives, everything learned and experienced after is a completely “new” experience to her even if she encounters it daily. Lucy cannot recall anything between the day of the accident and the present. At night, while sleeping, all of her memories of the day are erased. Lucy wakes up every day believing it is October 13th, 2002 which is her father’s birthday. October 13th was the day she, her mother, and her father got in a car accident in town. Lucy’s belief that it is still October 13th causes her to accomplish her daily tasks that she had planned for that day.
Lucy’s father, Marlin, and brother, Doug, take care to re-enact the same events to prevent Lucy from learning about her accident. They were afraid that if she knew, not only would she have