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PubMed1992

Mobilization of cognitive resources and the generation effect.

The generation effect refers to the memory advantage of words that have been generated rather than read. Such a read-generate comparison confounds qualitative task differences and raises methodological problems. A revised methodology is proposed circumventing these problems in that the encoding task is held constant and all stimuli have to be generated, but the degree of generativeness (i.e. the amount of cueing) is varied. In Experiment 1, 1, the (refined version of the) generation effect is demonstrated in a within-subjects design; with increasing generation activity left to the subject, free recall performance increases. No effect is obtained for degree of target masking. The same finding is replicated and shown to be independent of self-paced study time when generative activity is manipulated between subjects (Experiment 2) or within subjects (Experiment 3). As all learning trials involve generation, encoding time is controlled statistically, and free recall is used as a measure of memory, this refined generation effect cannot be explained as an artifact of selective attention or elaboration. Rather, generative activity seems to increase the mobilization of cognitive resources. This motivational account is supported by Experiment 4 showing an enhanced generation effect for positive mood.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Memory performance in dyslexic male juvenile delinquents convicted of severe offences does not differ from that in dyslexic male junior college students.

BACKGROUND: There are different research approaches regarding the causes and possible overrepresentation of dyslexia in criminals. One approach focuses on sociological explanations such as under-stimulation at home, while another focuses on the importance of cognitive neurobiological dysfunctions. In several studies, poor memory for digits and poor verbal learning ability have been found in non-criminal dyslexics. AIM: To compare memory performance in two groups of dyslexics, namely, juvenile delinquents and junior college students, in order to discuss their dyslexic problems in the light of sociocultural and cognitive neurobiological approaches. PARTICIPANTS: Two groups of male adolescent dyslexics: 11 juvenile delinquents (mean age 18.55 years, SD = 2.07), all of them convicted for severe offences, and 11 junior college students (mean age 17.09 years, SD = 0.83). RESULTS: Matched-samples t-tests indicate that there is no difference in memory performance between the two different groups of dyslexics, which supports the accuracy of the diagnoses of dyslexia in the group of juvenile delinquents. CONCLUSIONS: The present results show that the memory performance of dyslexic juvenile delinquents does not differ from that of dyslexic junior college students. A sociocultural approach, therefore, cannot plausibly explain the high prevalence of reading and writing difficulties among juvenile delinquents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Working memory capacity and the construction of spatial mental models in comprehension and deductive reasoning.

We asked 149 high-school students who were pretested for their working memory capacity (WMC) to read spatial descriptions relating to five objects and to evaluate conclusions asserting an unmentioned relationship between two of the objects. Unambiguous descriptions were compatible with a single spatial arrangement, whereas ambiguous descriptions permitted two arrangements; a subset of the ambiguous descriptions still determined the relation asserted in the conclusion, whereas another subset did not. Two groups of participants received different instructions: The deduction group should accept conclusions only if they followed with logical necessity from the description, whereas the comprehension group should accept a conclusion if it agreed with their representation of the arrangement. Self-paced reading times increased on sentences that introduced an ambiguity, replicating previous findings in deductive reasoning experiments. This effect was also found in the comprehension group, casting doubt on the interpretation that people consider multiple possible arrangements online. Responses to conclusions could be modelled by a multinomial processing model with four parameters: the probability of constructing a correct mental model, the probability of detecting an ambiguity, and two guessing parameters. Participants with high and with low WMC differed mainly in the probability of successfully constructing a mental model.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Recency effect in Alzheimer's disease: a reappraisal.

This study investigated the hypothesis that discrepant results regarding the recency effect in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients are due to the different scoring procedures used by various authors and/or to the different number of terminal items attributed to the recency part of the curve. Our results indicate that the last two processed words are available to AD patients for recall, just as they are to controls. Words processed slightly earlier are less available to AD patients than to controls, presumably because of the accelerated forgetting rate in demented patients.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

To forget or not to forget: the effect of probability of test on directed forgetting.

Two experiments investigated how individuals use explicit memory cues that designate different probabilities of test. As in typical directed forgetting studies, subjects received words explicitly cued as having either a 0% or a 100% chance of being on a subsequent memory test (i.e. forget and remember cues, respectively). In addition, some words were explicitly cued as having the potential to be either forgotten or remembered (i.e. a 50% cue). Recall of 50% words was between that of 0% and 100% words. In addition, the presence of 50% words lowered recall of the 100% words compared to that of a control group that did not receive 50% words, but received the same number of 100% words. A think-aloud task indicated that these results were due to 50% words being treated like either 100% of 0% words at encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of different probabilities of test on the strategic processing and representation of information.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

The effect of imageability and predicability of cues in autobiographical memory.

Four experiments investigated the role of imagery in the recollection of autobiographical memories. The first two experiments examined the effects of word imageability and word frequency on the retrieval of personal memories in a cued autobiographical memory task. They showed that the imageability of cues (but not frequency) mediates specificity in the recall of personal memories. Experiment 2 explored how different imagery modalities (visual, olfactory, tactile, auditory, and motor) influence autobiographical retrieval. Consistent with research on imagery modalities in verbal learning paradigms, visual imageability emerged as the most significant predictor of specificity. Experiments 3 and 4 examined how far a knowledge-based account of imagery effects might account for these effects, using predicability as a measure of semantic richness of a cue. Results found that visual imageability of cues accounted for more variance in specificity of recall than did predicability. The results are explained in terms of the way images represent the most efficient form of summarizing the information that can be used at each stage of the recollection process: setting the retrieval plan, strategic search, and evaluation of candidate episodes.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

The role of relational processing in memory for actions: a negative enactment effect in free recall.

The enactment effect occurs if people remember items that they enacted or enacted symbolically during study better than items that they were simply asked to remember. Enactment is generally believed to lead to thorough processing of individual items. There has been some controversy as to whether the superior processing of information concerning the relations between action phrases (i.e. whole-list relational information) may additionally contribute to the enactment effect. The extant empirical data on this issue seem contradictory. In the account brough forward here, it is hypothesized that whole-list relational information is processed better during enactment than during verbal learning only if it taps the same aspect of a concept as the verb-object relational information within each action phrase. It is processed worse if these two types of information tap different aspects of a concept. This explanation represents an extension of the three-factor account of positive and negative generation effects to the field of memory for actions. To provide evidence for this account, positive and, notably, negative enactment effects in object recall and in organization scores are demonstrated in three experiments with a total of 246 participants.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Individual differences in memory span: the contribution of rehearsal, access to lexical memory, and output speed.

Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individual differences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as the subject population, have suggested other contributors to span performance, notably contributions from long-term memory and forgetting and retrieval processes occurring during recall. In the current research we explore individual differences in span with respect to measures of rehearsal, output time, and access to lexical memory. We replicate standard short-term phenomena; we show that the variables that influence children's span performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we show that lexical memory access appears to be a more potent source of individual differences in span than either rehearsal speed or output factors.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The prevalence of "cognitive impairment no dementia" in community-dwelling elderly: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of "cognitive impairment no dementia" (CIND) and "amnestic mild cognitive impairment" (aMCI) in a population sample of 70-79-year-olds and the risk factors for CIND. METHOD: Cross sectional population survey. SETTING: Sutherland Shire, Sydney, Australia. SUBJECTS: 150 community-dwelling 70-79-year-olds were screened by telephone, 42 of whom were assessed at home. MEASURES: Demographics, subjective ratings of physical and emotional health and memory, cardiovascular risk factors, medications, the Mini-Mental State Examination, Boston Naming Test, Trail Making Tests A and B, Block Design, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Visual Reproduction, Logical Memory, letter and category fluency, the National Adult Reading Test (NART), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the "state" section of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S). RESULTS: From the 400 subjects contacted initially, 150 consented to be interviewed and 131 eligible subjects were recruited. Of a 1-in-3 random sample of 42 subjects assessed at home, 14 (33.3%) subjects met criteria for CIND, 1 (2.4%) had possible dementia and the 27 remaining (64.3%) were cognitively normal. Four (9.5%) met criteria for aMCI. Subjects with CIND were older, had lower ranking occupations and were less likely to be currently working than those classified as cognitively normal. Ten subjects with CIND did not meet criteria for aMCI because they lacked subjective memory impairment (n = 3) or had cognitive deficits other than memory (n = 7). All subjects with aMCI met criteria for CIND. CONCLUSIONS: One-third of individuals in this population sample met criteria for CIND. CIND is a broader definition than aMCI. Further research is needed to determine the longitudinal course and clinical utility of these definitions of cognitive impairment.

Aged↗
PubMed2000

The association between low diastolic blood pressure in middle age and cognitive function in old age. A population-based study.

BACKGROUND: previous longitudinal studies have shown an inverse relation between blood pressure and cognitive function. OBJECTIVE: to determine the association between mid-life blood pressure and performance in different areas of cognitive function in late life. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: we recruited 502 men, aged 69-74 years, from a population-based cohort in Uppsala, Sweden. Blood pressure had been measured at age 50 and we examined performance in 13 psychometric tests about 20 years later. RESULTS: after the 39 men with a previous stroke had been excluded, there was an inverse relation between diastolic blood pressure at age 50 and performance 20 years later in the digit span test, the trail-making tests and in verbal fluency. The relationships were significant, independently of age, education and previous occupational level. Men within the lowest category of diastolic blood pressure (< or = 70 mmHg, n = 59) showed the best results. Baseline blood pressure levels were not linked to performance in tasks on vocabulary, verbal learning and memory or figure copying. CONCLUSIONS: low blood pressure in mid-life indicates a low long-term cerebrovascular risk and is associated with higher late-life performance in cognitive tests that mainly assess subcortico-frontal cognitive functions.

Aged↗
PubMed2002

Homocysteine, B vitamin status, and cognitive function in the elderly.

BACKGROUND: Old age is associated with reduced cognitive performance. Nutritional factors may contribute to this association. OBJECTIVE: We tested associations between cognitive performance and plasma vitamin B-12, folate, and homocysteine concentrations in the elderly. DESIGN: We studied survivors of the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 (Aberdeen 1921 Birth Cohort, or ABC21) and 1947 (Aberdeen 1936 Birth Cohort, or ABC36), which surveyed childhood intelligence quotient. We measured folate, vitamin B-12, and homocysteine concentrations in fasting blood samples and cognitive performance by the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), National Adult Reading Test (NART), Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM), Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), digit symbol (DS) subtest, and block design (BD) subtest. RESULTS: Homocysteine was higher in the ABC21 than in the ABC36 (P < 0.0001). There were positive correlations between folate and vitamin B-12 and negative correlations between homocysteine and both folate and vitamin B-12. MMSE, RPM, AVLT, DS, and BD scores were higher in the ABC36. In the ABC21, folate, vitamin B-12, and MMSE score were positively correlated and homocysteine was negatively correlated with RPM, DS, and BD scores. Folic acid was positively correlated with AVLT and DS scores. In the ABC36, folate was positively correlated with BD score. After adjustment for childhood intelligence quotient, partial correlations were strengthened between vitamin B-12 and NART score and between homocysteine and RPM score but weakened between red blood cell folate and DS score. CONCLUSIONS: B vitamins and homocysteine are associated with cognitive variation in old age. In the ABC21 but not the ABC36, homocysteine accounted for approximately 7-8% of the variance in cognitive performance. This may prove relevant to the design of neuroprotective studies in late life.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A comparison of cognitive performance in binge versus regular chronic alcohol misusers.

One hundred cases of individuals assessed for alcohol-related cognitive performance were examined. The assessment included demographic and alcohol consumption data, as well as performance on tests of auditory verbal learning, memory, motor skills, general intellectual functioning, and visuospatial functioning. All participants regularly drank in excess of 10 standard drinks/session. Fifty cases were binge drinkers who consumed alcohol on 2 days/week or less and 50 cases were individuals who consumed alcohol daily. The two groups of drinkers were statistically matched on a number of demographic and misuse factors. The results indicated similar performance for both the binge drinkers and the regular drinkers in visuo-motor speed, visuo-spatial organization and planning, learning, proactive interference, retroactive interference, and retrieval efficiency. However, performance differences were observed on tasks that required semantic organizational ability, with binge drinkers performing better than regular drinkers on these tasks. Due to the differences in the cognitive performance of the two groups, it was concluded that drinking pattern is an important factor in investigating cognitive performance in alcoholics.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Contribution of frontal cerebral blood flow measured by (99m)Tc-Bicisate spect and executive function deficits to predicting treatment outcome in alcohol-dependent patients.

AIM: To determine whether inhibition and working memory deficits, and reduced regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) (previously shown to be related), measured at the end of a detoxification programme, predict alcoholic relapse 2 months later. METHODS: Twenty uncomplicated alcoholic inpatients were investigated at the end of detoxification, at least 7 days since the last dose of diazepam, and a mean of 18.8 days since the last drink. Their performance was assessed on the inhibition (Hayling) test, working memory (Alpha-span task), episodic memory (California Verbal Learning Test) and abstract reasoning (Progressive Matrices). Frontal CBF was assessed at the same time with a semiquantitative (99m)Tc-Bicisate SPECT procedure. Patients were contacted 2 months later. Patients who abstained (n = 9) did not differ from those who relapsed (n = 11) on age, gender, smoking, duration of alcohol misuse, number of previous detoxifications, amount of ethanol consumed the month prior to admission to the detoxification programme, state anxiety, trait anxiety, or depression. RESULTS: Relapsed subjects had shown a lower uptake of (99m)Tc-Bicisate in the bilateral medial frontal gyrus (n = 9; mean ratio +/- SD = 0.69 +/- 0.006) than abstainers (n = 11; 0.85 +/- 0.19), and poorer performance on the Alpha-span task and the Hayling test. The other tests were not different. CONCLUSIONS: Inhibition and working memory deficits, associated with low levels of CBF in the medial frontal gyrus, are related to the difficulty of maintaining short-term abstinence from alcohol.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Recovery of hippocampus-related functions in chronic alcoholics during monitored long-term abstinence.

AIMS: The hippocampus (HC) is characterized by high vulnerability to noxious influence, but also by a considerable regenerative potential. Although deficits in HC-related functions are among the most commonly reported cognitive sequelae in alcoholism, little and conflicting information is available concerning regeneration upon abstinence. The present study has been designed to evaluate (i) the frequency of measurable dysfunction in so called HC tests and (ii) its predictive value for risk to relapse in a cohort of 50 severely affected chronic alcoholic patients and (iii) to monitor recovery of HC-related functions upon strict abstention from alcohol. METHODS: Patients underwent a 2-year neuropsychological follow-up including HC-associated tests (Verbal Learning Test, VLT; Nonverbal Learning Test, NVLT; 'City Map Test' of Learning and Memory Test, LGT-3), as well as tests of intelligence and attention in the framework of OLITA (Outpatient Long-Term Intensive Therapy for Alcoholics), a programme with careful abstinence monitoring. RESULTS: At study entry, 30/50 (60%) alcoholics had HC dysfunction which tended to predict a lower long-term abstinence probability (P = 0.058). Of the subgroup that could be followed under conditions of strictly monitored alcohol abstinence (n = 32; age 44.7 +/- 6.2 years; 23 men, 9 women), 53% (17/32) exhibited distinct HC dysfunction at inclusion which returned to normal after 2 years. Patients with initially normal HC function (9/32) and patients with additional brain damage of different aetiologies (6/32) failed to show improvement on HC-related tests. While the former displayed stably normal HC test performance, the latter remained on a performance level below normal. CONCLUSIONS: Demonstrating slow but remarkable regeneration of HC functions upon strict abstention from alcohol, our data strongly support abstinence-oriented long-term treatment of alcoholics. The absence of functional recovery in patients with additional causes of brain damage might be explained by the 'dual hit' exhausting the regenerative potential of the HC.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Right hemisphere restitution of language and memory functions in right hemisphere language-dominant patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy.

Concomitant with the right hemispheric restitution of language functions after early left hemisphere lesions, suppression effects on originally right hemispheric visuospatial/constructional functions have repeatedly been reported. The present study evaluated this issue in 10 right hemisphere language-dominant patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. Left hemisphere language-dominant patients with left (n = 10) or right (n = 10) temporal lobe epilepsy served as controls. The following results were obtained: in all but one of the right dominant patients, left hemisphere lesions, left hemisphere foci and histories of early left brain damage indicated that secondary language transfer rather than a genetically determination is the more likely cause of the right hemisphere dominance. Despite this transfer, the language functions (comprehension, fluency, reasoning) of the right dominant patients remained significantly impaired. Language generally appeared to be better preserved in patients with an onset of epilepsy before the third year of life or a circumscribed left hemisphere lesion. No suppression effects could be detected on the level of complex cortical language and non-language functions. In contrast, on the level of temporo-limbic memory functions, verbal learning and recognition were left largely intact, albeit mostly at the expense of visuo-spatial learning and memory. The findings of the study thus indicate that the cerebral plasticity of the right hemisphere differs according to the extent of the left-hemisphere lesion, the onset of structural/functional damage and the complexity of the functions requiring restitution. Assuming that language and memory represent neocortical and palaeocortical functions, respectively, the restitution process is seemingly governed by their status in a phylogenetically determined hierarchy of functional importance.

Brain Diseases↗
PubMed2001

A double dissociation between accuracy and time of execution on attentional tasks in Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia.

Two cancellation/attentional tasks: (i) Lines Cancellation (LC) and Multiple Features Targets Cancellation (MFTC) and (ii) a standard battery of neuropsychological tests, the Mental Deterioration Battery (MDB), were administered to 68 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and 40 patients with multi-infarct dementia (MID), who were accurately matched for the overall severity of dementia, and to 40 normal controls. Both accuracy and time of execution were considered in evaluating performance on the two cancellation tasks, which involved visuospatial exploration and psychomotor speed, but were differently demanding in terms of selective attention. On the first cancellation task (LC), requiring a lower attentional load, the two demented patient groups performed at the same level of accuracy. On the second cancellation task (MFTC), which was more demanding in terms of selective and divided attention, DAT patients were significantly less accurate than MID patients, making a higher number of 'false-alarm' errors. Conversely, the time employed in the execution of both LC and MFTC took longer for MID than for DAT patients, suggesting a greater impairment of psychomotor speed in MID. In the MDB, DAT patients scored significantly worse than MID patients on several measures of episodic memory (the immediate recall, delayed recall and delayed recognition of Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test) and on a test of visual-spatial memory. These data suggest that, while psychomotor speed and the lower (sensorimotor) levels of attention are preferentially impaired in subcortical forms of dementia such as MID, the higher levels of selective and divided attention are more markedly disrupted in the Alzheimer type of dementia.

Aged↗
PubMed2005

Greater functional recovery after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery in children.

The purpose of our study is to evaluate whether children recover better than adults from memory deficits as a consequence of temporal lobe surgery. We compared 3 and 12 month outcomes obtained in children and adults with medically refractory epilepsy. Each candidate underwent temporal lobe resection for seizure control and children were matched with regard to pathology, onset of epilepsy, side of surgery and type of surgery with adults (N = 30 for each group, mean age at surgery 13 versus 30 years). Three months after surgery, both left-resected groups displayed a significant decline in verbal learning capacity. During the following 9 months, only the children recovered and were able to reach their preoperative level 1 year after surgery. The left-resected adults remained, for the most part, on their low level and one year after surgery, they were still significantly worse than at the time of their preoperative examination. The right-resected adults experienced a deterioration in visual memory 1 year after surgery relative to the results of the short-term follow-up; the children improved. The children also had a better outcome with regard to attentional functions and, as a trend, a better seizure outcome (Engel Outcome I--1 year after surgery: 63% adults, 80% paediatric patients). Our neuropsychological data provide evidence of greater plasticity and compensational capacity in childhood. The results can be taken as a strong argument for early surgical intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Two-year follow-up of amyloid deposition in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Beta amyloid is one of the major histopathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. We recently reported in vivo imaging of amyloid in 16 Alzheimer patients, using the PET ligand N-methyl[11C]2-(4'-methylaminophenyl)-6-hydroxy-benzothiazole (PIB). In the present study we rescanned these 16 Alzheimer patients after 2.0 +/- 0.5 years and have described the interval change in amyloid deposition and regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRGlc) at follow-up. Sixteen patients with Alzheimer's disease were re-examined by means of PET, using PIB and 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) after 2.0 +/- 0.5 years. The patients were all on cholinesterase inhibitor treatment and five also on treatment with the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist memantine. In order to estimate the accuracy of the PET PIB measurements, four additional Alzheimer patients underwent repeated examinations with PIB within 20 days (test-retest). Relative PIB retention in cortical regions differed by 3-7% in the test-retest study. No significant difference in PIB retention was observed between baseline and follow-up while a significant (P < 0.01) 20% decrease in rCMRGlc was observed in cortical brain regions. A significant negative correlation between rCMRGlc and PIB retention was observed in the parietal cortex in the Alzheimer patients at follow-up (r = 0.67, P = 0.009). A non-significant decline in Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score from 24.3 +/- 3.7 (mean +/- standard deviation) to 22.7 +/- 6.1 was measured at follow-up. Five of the Alzheimer patients showed a significant decline in MMSE score of >3 (21.4 +/- 3.5 to 15.6 +/- 3.9, P < 0.01) (AD-progressive) while the rest of the patients were cognitively more stable (MMSE score = 25.6 +/- 3.1 to 25.9 +/- 3.7) (AD-stable) compared with baseline. A positive correlation (P = 0.001) was observed in the parietal cortex between Rey Auditory Verbal Learning (RAVL) test score and rCMRGlc at follow-up while a negative correlation (P = 0.018) was observed between RAVL test and PIB retention in the parietal at follow-up. Relatively stable PIB retention after 2 years of follow-up in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease suggests that amyloid deposition in the brain reaches a plateau by the early clinical stages of Alzheimer's disease and therefore may precede a decline in rCMRGlc and cognition. It appears that anti-amyloid therapies will need to induce a significant decrease in amyloid load in order for PIB PET images to detect a drug effect in Alzheimer patients. FDG imaging may be able to detect a stabilization of cerebral metabolism caused by therapy administered to patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Aged↗