The speech of three Korsakov-patients and three normals is sampled under three conditions: unstructured, semi-structured and structured. The speech samples are analysed syntactically as well as semantically by means of several linguistic variables. The hypothesis is that the speech of Korsakov-patients ánd normals will disintergrate when the range of possible responses becomes smaller and the contribution of the memory functions more evident. The disintegration of the speech of Korsakov-patients will be larger than that of normals.

The results of the case studies show that Korsakov-patients presented a decrease of syntactic ability under cognitive stress. Their semantic ability, however, remained undisturbed.

Neurophysiological as well as neuropsychological hypotheses are formulated to clarify the tentative results of the experiments.