253 results on '"*SEMANTIC memory"'
Search Results
2. Contrasting the semantic typology biases of Deaf and hearing nonsigners in their conceptualization of time and space.
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Macedo, María Noel, Yerro, Matías, Vivas, Jorge, Castillo, Mauricio, Meliande, Maximiliano, de León, Adriana, Fojo, Alejandro, and Aguirre, Roberto
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HEARING , *PHONOLOGICAL awareness , *DEAFNESS , *CONCEPT mapping , *TIME , *CLASSIFICATION , *LINGUISTICS , *SIGN language , *COGNITION , *SEMANTIC memory , *COMPARATIVE studies , *LATENT semantic analysis , *RESEARCH funding , *THEMATIC analysis , *SPACE perception - Abstract
The mental lexicon offers a window into the configuration of conceptual domains such as space and time, which has been labeled as concrete the former and abstract the latter in the current embodiment approach to cognition. Space has a phonological and semantic value in sign languages, but not in spoken languages. Additionally, the representation of time by spatial means is robust in oral and sign languages. This research asks if Deaf signers and hearing nonsigners have the same conceptual organization of those domains. In their respective languages, sixty-two participants made a repeated free word association task. These results showed that the studied populations have a little overlap in the associates evocated for each clue. The analysis of the preferences of the semantic relations of the pairs clue-associate showed a greater tendency of the Deaf signers to establish thematic relations. In contrast, the hearing participants indicated a bias toward taxonomic relations. The results suggest that the abstractness or concreteness of concepts may be modulated by factors associated with linguistic modalities. However, in this compared free association norms factors related to the language deprivation of Deaf, the asymmetries in the cross-modal language contact and cross-modal borrowing were not exhaustively controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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3. Effects of early-life environment and adulthood SES on cognitive change in a multiethnic cohort.
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Meyer, Oanh L., Harrati, Amal, Gavett, Brandon E., Farias, Sarah T., Whitmer, Rachel A., Widaman, Keith, Hoang, Victoria, Tobias, Michele, and Mungas, Dan
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ADULTS , *EPISODIC memory , *COGNITIVE ability , *EXECUTIVE function , *SEMANTIC memory , *SPATIAL ability - Abstract
Objectives: Early-life socioeconomic status (SES) and adversity are associated with late-life cognition and risk of dementia. We examined the association between early-life SES and adversity and late-life cross-sectional cognitive outcomes as well as global cognitive decline, hypothesizing that adulthood SES would mediate these associations. Methods: Our sample (N = 837) was a racially and ethnically diverse cohort of non-Hispanic/Latino White (48%), Black (27%), and Hispanic/Latino (19%) participants from Northern California. Participant addresses were geocoded to the level of the census tract, and US Census Tract 2010 variables (e.g., percent with high school diploma) were extracted and combined to create a neighborhood SES composite. We used multilevel latent variable models to estimate early-life (e.g., parental education, whether participant ever went hungry) and adult (participant's education, main occupation) SES factors and their associations with cross-sectional and longitudinal cognitive outcomes of episodic memory, semantic memory, executive function, and spatial ability. Results: Child and adult factors were strongly related to domain-specific cognitive intercepts (0.20–0.48 SD per SD of SES factor); in contrast, SES factors were not related to global cognitive change (0.001–0.01 SD per year per SD of SES factor). Adulthood SES mediated a large percentage (68–75%) of the total early-life effect on cognition. Conclusions: Early-life sociocontextual factors are more strongly associated with cross-sectional late-life cognitive performance compared to cognitive change; this effect is largely mediated through associations with adulthood SES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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4. Beyond the conservative hypothesis: a meta-analysis of lexical-semantic processing in Williams syndrome.
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Romero-Rivas, Carlos, Rodríguez-Cuadrado, Sara, Sabater, Lucía, Rodríguez Gómez, Pablo, Hidalgo de la Guía, Irene, Moreno, Eva M., and Garayzábal Heinze, Elena
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WILLIAMS syndrome ,MENTAL age ,VERBAL memory ,SEMANTIC memory ,PUBLICATION bias ,SHORT-term memory - Abstract
Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder, characterised at the cognitive level by a phenotypic pattern of relative weaknesses (e.g., visuospatial skills) and strengths (e.g., some linguistic and nonverbal reasoning skills). In this study, we performed a systematic search and meta-analysis on lexical-semantic processing in WS, an area of knowledge in which contradictory results have been obtained. We found 42 studies matching our criteria, and, in total, 78 effect sizes were included in the meta-analysis. Results showed that individuals with WS have worse lexical-semantic skills than individuals with typical development, whether matched by chronological or mental age. However, people with WS have better lexical-semantic skills than people diagnosed with other cognitive disabilities. Finally, vocabulary skills seem to be relatively spared in WS, although they present some difficulties in semantic processing/integration, semantic memory organisation and verbal working memory skills. Taken together, these results support a neuroconstructivist approach, according to which the cognitive mechanisms involved in lexical-semantic processing may be modulated, even when performance in some tasks (i.e., vocabulary tasks) might be optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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5. Major neurocognitive psychosis: a novel schizophrenia endophenotype class that is based on machine learning and resembles Kraepelin's and Bleuler's conceptions.
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Maes, Michael
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MACHINE learning , *PSYCHOSES , *EPISODIC memory , *SCHIZOPHRENIA , *COGNITION disorders , *SEMANTIC memory , *EXECUTIVE function - Abstract
The purpose of this study is to describe how to use the precision nomothetic psychiatry approach to (a) delineate the associations between schizophrenia symptom domains, including negative symptoms, psychosis, hostility, excitation, mannerism, formal thought disorders, psychomotor retardation (PHEMFP), and cognitive dysfunctions and neuroimmunotoxic and neuro-oxidative pathways and (b) create a new endophenotype class based on these features. We show that all symptom domains (negative and PHEMFP) may be used to derive a single latent trait called overall severity of schizophrenia (OSOS). In addition, neurocognitive test results may be used to extract a general cognitive decline (G-CoDe) index, based on executive function, attention, semantic and episodic memory, and delayed recall scores. According to partial least squares analysis, the impacts of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) on OSOS are partially mediated by increasing G-CoDe severity. The AOPs include neurotoxic cytokines and chemokines, oxidative damage to proteins and lipids, IgA responses to neurotoxic tryptophan catabolites, breakdown of the vascular and paracellular pathways with translocation of Gram-negative bacteria, and insufficient protection through lowered antioxidant levels and impairments in the innate immune system. Unsupervised machine learning identified a new schizophrenia endophenotype class, named major neurocognitive psychosis (MNP), which is characterised by increased negative symptoms and PHEMFP, G-CoDe and the above-mentioned AOPs. Based on these pathways and phenome features, MNP is a distinct endophenotype class which is qualitatively different from simple psychosis (SP). It is impossible to draw any valid conclusions from research on schizophrenia that ignores the MNP and SP distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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6. The long-term effects of a polygenetic predisposition to general cognition on healthy cognitive ageing: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
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Ajnakina, Olesya, Murray, Robin, Steptoe, Andrew, and Cadar, Dorina
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COGNITION disorders , *SEMANTICS , *EXECUTIVE function , *ACTIVE aging , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *AGE distribution , *GENETIC polymorphisms , *COGNITION , *SEMANTIC memory , *GENETIC testing , *COGNITIVE aging , *COMPARATIVE studies , *SEX distribution , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *RESEARCH funding , *STATISTICAL sampling , *LONGITUDINAL method - Abstract
Background: As an accelerated cognitive decline frequently heralds onset of severe neuropathological disorders, understanding the source of individual differences in withstanding the onslaught of cognitive ageing may highlight how best cognitive abilities may be retained into advanced age. Methods: Using a population representative sample of 5088 adults aged •50 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we investigated relationships of polygenic predisposition to general cognition with a rate of change in cognition during a 10-year follow-up period. Polygenic predisposition was measured with polygenic scores for general cognition (GC-PGS). Cognition was measured employing tests for verbal memory and semantic fluency. Results: The average baseline memory score was 11.1 (s.d. = 2.9) and executive function score was 21.5 (s.d. = 5.8). An increase in GC-PGS by one standard deviation (1-s.d.) was associated with a higher baseline verbal memory by an average 0.27 points (95% CI 0.19–0.34, p < 0.001). Similarly, 1-s.d. increase in GC-PGS was associated with a higher semantic fluency score at baseline in the entire sample (β = 0.45, 95% CI 0.27–0.64, p < 0.001). These associations were significant for women and men, and all age groups. Nonetheless, 1-s.d. increase in GC-PGS was not associated with decreases in verbal memory nor semantic fluency during follow-up in the entire sample, as well stratified models by sex and age. Conclusion: Although common genetic variants associated with general cognition additively are associated with a stable surplus to cognition in adults, a polygenic predisposition to general cognition is not associated with age-related cognitive decline during a 10-year follow-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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7. APOE Effects on Late Life Cognitive Trajectories in Diverse Racial/Ethnic Groups.
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Chan, Michelle L., Meyer, Oanh L., Farias, Sarah T., Whitmer, Rachel A., Rajan, Kumar, Olichney, John, Johnson, David, and Mungas, Dan
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EPISODIC memory , *ETHNIC groups , *APOLIPOPROTEIN E , *BLACK people , *SEMANTIC memory , *EXECUTIVE function - Abstract
Objective: This study evaluated: (1) apolipoprotein E (APOE) ϵ4 prevalence among Black, Latino, and White older adults, (2) associations of APOE ϵ4 status with baseline level and change over time of cognitive outcomes across groups, and (3) combined impact of APOE ϵ4 prevalence and magnitude of effect on cognitive decline within each racial/ethnic group. Method: Participants included 297 White, 138 Latino, and 149 Black individuals from the longitudinal UC Davis Diversity Cohort who had APOE genotyping and ≥2 cognitive assessments. Magnitude of associations of ϵ4 with cognitive baseline and change across racial/ethnic groups was tested with multilevel parallel process longitudinal analyses and multiple group models. Results: ϵ4 prevalence in Black (46%) and White participants (46%) was almost double that of Latino participants (24%). ϵ4 was associated with poorer baseline episodic memory only in White participants (p = .001), but had a moderately strong association with episodic memory change across all racial/ethnic groups (Blacks= −.061 SD/year, Latinos = −.055,Whites= −.055). ϵ4 association with semantic memory change was strongest in White participants (−.071), intermediate in Latino participants (−.041), and weakest in Black participants (−.022). Conclusion: Calculated cognitive trajectories across racial/ethnic groups were influenced in an additive manner by ϵ4 prevalence and strength of association with cognitive decline within the group. Group differences in ϵ4 prevalences and associations of ϵ4 with cognition may suggest different pathways from APOE to cognitive decline, and, AD possibly having less salient impact on cognitive decline in non-White participants. Differential effects of APOE on episodic memory and non-memory cognition have important implications for understanding how APOE influences late life cognitive decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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8. From jamais to déjà vu: The respective roles of semantic and episodic memory in novelty monitoring and involuntary memory retrieval.
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Renoult, Louis and Debruille, J. Bruno
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RECOLLECTION (Psychology) , *EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory , *AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL memory , *MEMORY - Abstract
Barzykowski and Moulin's model proposes that déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories are the result of a continuously active memory system that tracks the novelty of situations. Déjà vu would only have episodic content and concern interpretation of prior experiences. We argue that these aspects of the model would gain to be clarified and explored further and we suggest possible directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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9. The Role of Silence in Verbal Fluency Tasks – A New Approach for the Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment.
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Balogh, Réka, Imre, Nóra, Gosztolya, Gábor, Hoffmann, lldikó, Pákáski, Magdolna, and Kálmán, János
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MILD cognitive impairment , *RECEIVER operating characteristic curves , *WORD frequency , *COGNITIVE aging , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objective: Most recordings of verbal fluency tasks include substantial amounts of task-irrelevant content that could provide clinically valuable information for the detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We developed a method for the analysis of verbal fluency, focusing not on the task-relevant words but on the silent segments, the hesitations, and the irrelevant utterances found in the voice recordings. Methods: Phonemic ('k', 't', 'a') and semantic (animals, food items, actions) verbal fluency data were collected from healthy control (HC; n = 25; M age = 67.32) and MCI (n = 25; M age = 71.72) participants. After manual annotation of the voice samples, 10 temporal parameters were computed based on the silent and the task-irrelevant segments. Traditional fluency measures, based on word count (correct words, errors, repetitions) were also employed in order to compare the outcome of the two methods. Results: Two silence-based parameters (the number of silent pauses and the average length of silent pauses) and the average word transition time differed significantly between the two groups in the case of all three semantic fluency tasks. Subsequent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that these three temporal parameters had classification abilities similar to the traditional measure of counting correct words. Conclusion: In our approach for verbal fluency analysis, silence-related parameters displayed classification ability similar to the most widely used traditional fluency measure. Based on these results, an automated tool using voiced-unvoiced segmentation may be developed enabling swift and cost-effective verbal fluency-based MCI screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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10. The effect of letter-case type on the semantic processing of words and sentences during attentive and mind-wandering states.
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Laham, Nicolas and Leth-Steensen, Craig
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MIND-wandering ,RECOGNITION (Psychology) ,SEMANTIC memory ,TRAFFIC signs & signals ,SPECIFIC language impairment in children ,VOCABULARY - Abstract
The task of finding a case type that, on average, enhances the processing of verbal material has yielded mixed results in the literature. This study tackled this issue with an eye to the issue of processing textual information on road signs and the additional consideration of readers' attentive states. Participants (n = 104) completed three experiments, the first two of which made use of both short (i.e., attentive state) and long (i.e., nonattentive or mind-wandering state) inter-trial intervals (ITIs). Experiment I consisted of a living versus non-living category-decision task involving the presentation of single words. Experiment II consisted of a sensical versus nonsensical sentence-judgment task. Experiment III consisted of a recognition memory task for words presented during the category-decision task. No significant difference in letter-case-type effectiveness was found for either the semantic categorization of or memory for single words. On the other hand, sensical sentences were correctly judged more quickly in lower case (or, more precisely, sentence case with the first letter of the first word capitalized). Such results point to either a more fluent processing of or enhanced conceptual resonance for sentences presented in lower case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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11. Properties of the Cognitive Function Battery for the MIND Diet Intervention to Prevent Alzheimer's Disease.
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Krueger, Kristin R., Dhana, Klodian, Aggarwal, Neelum T., Arfanakis, Konstantinos, Carey, Vincent J., Sacks, Frank M., and Barnes, Lisa L.
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ALZHEIMER'S disease , *COGNITIVE ability , *COGNITION , *PRINCIPAL components analysis , *EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory , *EXECUTIVE function - Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the properties of the cognitive battery used in the MIND Diet Intervention to Prevent Alzheimer's Disease. The MIND Diet Intervention is a randomized control trial to determine the relative effectiveness of the MIND diet in slowing cognitive decline and reducing brain atrophy in older adults at risk for Alzheimer's dementia. Methods: The MIND cognitive function battery was administered at baseline to 604 participants of an average age of 70 years, who agreed to participate in the diet intervention study, and was designed to measure change over time. The battery included 12 cognitive tests, measuring the 4 cognitive domains of executive function, perceptual speed, episodic memory, and semantic memory. We conducted a principal component analysis to examine the consistency between our theoretical domains and the statistical performance of participants in each domain. To further establish the validity of each domain, we regressed the domain scores against a late-life cognitive activity score, controlling for age, race, sex, and years of education. Results: Four factors emerged in the principal component analyses that were similar to the theoretical domains. In regression equations, we found the expected associations with age, education, and late-life cognitive activity with each of the four cognitive domains. Conclusions: These results indicate that the MIND cognitive battery is a comprehensive and valid battery of four separate domains of cognitive function that can be used in diet intervention trials for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2022
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12. Autobiographical Memory Fluency Reductions in Cognitively Unimpaired Middle-Aged and Older Adults at Increased Risk for Alzheimer's Disease Dementia.
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Grilli, Matthew D., Wank, Aubrey A., Huentelman, Matthew J., and Ryan, Lee
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DISEASE risk factors , *AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL memory , *MIDDLE-aged persons , *ALZHEIMER'S disease , *EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory , *OLDER people - Abstract
Objective: Recent research has revealed that cognitively unimpaired older adults who are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia often exhibit subtle cognitive alterations in their neuropsychological profiles. Emerging evidence suggests that autobiographical memory, which is memory for personal events and knowledge, may be sensitive to early AD-related cognitive alterations. In the present study, we investigated whether the rapid generation of autobiographical memory category exemplars, a retrieval process that taxes the neural network that is vulnerable to early AD, is compromised in cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older carriers of the e4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE4), which increases risk for AD dementia. Methods: In addition to standard neuropsychological tests, we administered a fluency task that requires generating exemplars for two types of autobiographical memory, namely episodic memories and personal semantics, to a group of cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older adults (n = 45) enriched with APOE4 carriers (n = 20). Results: While no APOE4 deficits were found on standard neuropsychological tests, episodic and personal semantic exemplar generation was reduced in the APOE4 group. Discussion: Autobiographical memory aberrations associated with a higher risk for AD are evident in fluency and affect both episodic memory and personal semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
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13. 2 Long Term Forgetting for News Events: Does Event Frequency Matter?
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O'Connor, Margaret G
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EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory , *MEMORY loss , *NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL tests , *OLDER people , *MEMORY testing , *COGNITION disorders - Abstract
Objective: Health providers frequently probe patients' recall of current and/or remote news items to determine the extent of memory loss. Impaired memory for transient events (i.e., in the news for a circumscribed time) may provide information regarding the onset of cognitive impairment. We utilized the Transient News Events Test (TNET) to explore how memory changes over time in older adults with cognitive impairment (CI) and non-cognitively impaired (NCI) individuals. We hypothesized that CI individuals would demonstrate reduced memory for transient events. We investigated the role of semantic and episodic memory on TNET performance. Participants and Methods: Participants completed the TNET as part a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. Analyses included t tests to evaluate group differences for TNET performance, and correlations between TNET and neuropsychological measures, including episodic and semantic memory tests. Results: NCI adults demonstrated better memory than CI participants for TNET items. The NCI and CI groups did not differ regarding memory for remote items; however, CI participants had worse memory for recent items. There was a significant association between TNET performance and capacity for episodic and semantic memory in people with CI. In the NCI group, the TNET was associated only with episodic memory. Conclusions: Findings support the use of news events to assess remote memories in older adults. Novel remote memory measures broaden the scope of memory assessment far beyond what is feasible within traditional neuropsychological assessment and provide insight into the onset of memory changes. Results enhance understanding of memory decline in older adults with cognitive impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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14. 68 Interactive Effects of Sleep Apnea and Depression Symptoms on Cognition in Older Adults.
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Overstreet, Abigail, Hollander, Matthew, Hougaard, Ben, Kiefer, Jamie, Mo, Vennisia, and Gomez, Rowena
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SLEEP apnea syndromes , *OLDER people , *COGNITIVE processing speed , *MENTAL depression , *SLEEP interruptions , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objective: Sleep deprivation and depressive symptoms have been shown to negatively impact cognitive function within older adult populations (Gilley, 2022; Donovan et al., 2016). However, there is minimal research on interactions between sleep disturbance and depressive symptoms in relation to their shared impact on cognitive impairment. The purpose of this study is to examine possible interactions between sleep disorders and depression and their relationship with cognition among relatively good functioning and healthy older adults. Participants and Methods: The sample was obtained from the Memory and Aging Project (Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University, 2019) and consisted of 3,345 community dwelling older adults. The study analyzed data from 2552 women (76.3%) and 1093 men (23.7%). The average age of participants was 80 years and ranged from 45 to 98 years old. Measures used included the Berlin Questionnaire (risk for sleep apnea), Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; depression), and a neuropsychological battery (visuospatial ability/perceptual reasoning and processing speed). Results: ANOVA analyses exhibited a significant main effect of depression on visuospatial ability/perceptual reasoning (p <.001), processing speed (p <.001), and semantic memory (p <.001). No significant main effect was found for sleep apnea on these cognitive domains. However, when sleep apnea was analyzed between those with any depressive symptoms versus those without, significant interactions were found for visuospatial ability/perceptual reasoning (p =.027), processing speed (p <.001), and semantic memory (p =.016). Sleep apnea symptoms had a greater detrimental effect on visuospatial skills and perceptual reasoning (F=4.90; p=.027) only when any depression symptom is present. In contrast, there was a steeper decline of processing speed when only depressive symptoms were present apart from sleep apnea symptoms (F=10.34; p =.001) Similarly, depressive symptoms had a greater negative effect on semantic memory for older adults who reported no sleep apnea symptoms compare to those who did (F=5.83, p=.016). Conclusions: The current study indicated that while sleep apnea was negatively related to several cognitive domains, the impact became greater with the presence of depression on visuospatial skills and perceptual reasoning among older adults. However, the detrimental impact of sleep apnea was somewhat less with the presence of depression for processing speed and semantic memory. This may be due to likely higher endorsements of depressive symptoms compared to sleep apnea symptoms within the study sample. These findings suggest that there are differential interactive effects of sleep impairment and depressive symptoms on cognitive domains among older adults. Considering the relationship that exists between depression and increased disease burden among older adults, it is crucial for clinicians to also take sleep behaviors into account when examining and treating their patients. Clinicians should be mindful of their older patient's sleep health and depression measures when cognitive declines are suspected. They also suggest that cognitive performance may be improved with treating any symptoms of sleep apnea and depression in older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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15. 44 Dietary Nitrate Intake in Older Adults Associated with Increased Cognition and Reduced Depression.
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Hollander, Matthew M, Overstreet, Abigail, Hougaard, Ban, Mo, Vennisia, Calzada, Christopher, St Goar, Carl, Jennings, Brandon, Agrawal, Ayushi, Chok, Jas, and Gomez, Rowena
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OLDER people , *FOOD consumption , *VASCULAR smooth muscle , *PEARSON correlation (Statistics) , *MENTAL depression , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objective: Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are observed to have reduced plasma nitrate levels and plasma nitric oxide (NO) metabolites (Chrapko et al., 2004; Garcia et al., 2011). Endothelial cell dependent dilation of vascular smooth muscle function has been observed to be blunted in adults with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and mediated by NO-dependent dilation (Greaney et al., 2019). Certain vegetables and fruits are particularly high in dietary nitrates, which is reduced to nitric oxide in the stomach, entering intravascular circulation, and acting as a potent dilator, blood pressure reducing, and vasoprotective substance (Webb et al., 2008). In older adults, dietary nitrates which are found in certain vegetables and fruits (e.g., green leafy vegetables) is shown to increase cerebral blood perfusion in frontal lobe white matter between the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, regions particularly implicated in cognitive functioning (Presley et al., 2011). Recently, Morris et al. (2018) observed that in older adults from the Memory and Aging Project (MAP), the highest quintile of dietary nitrate intake was associated with slower cognitive decline than that of the lowest quintile of nitrate intake. Although viewing the extremes of dietary nitrate intake reveals valuable information, the present study investigated the association of all levels of dietary nitrate intake with cognition and depression among older adults in the same MAP dataset. Participants and Methods: The sample included 461 community dwelling older adults (Mage=80; Medu =14.9, 74% female) from the MAP study (Bennett et al., 2012). The measures used for the present study include: the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD, depression), a neuropsychological battery (global cognition, perceptual organization and semantic memory), and a dietary nutrient analysis of the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ, nitrate). Results: Using Pearson correlations we observed that increased dietary nitrate intake was associated with increased global cognition (r(458) =.100, p =.031), perceptual organization (r(448) =.095, p =.04) and semantic memory (r(453) =.142, p =.002). Furthermore, we observed that dietary nitrate intake was associated with lower depression severity (r(459) = -.132, p =.004). Conclusions: The present study's results revealed that in a sample of community dwelling older adults, eating more nitrate rich foods is not only associated with improved cognition similar to findings of Morris et al. (2018), it is also associated with lower levels of depression. This further extends the Morris et al. (2018) study by suggesting that it is not only those older adults who eat the highest quantity of nitrate rich foods that can benefit from higher levels of nitrate intake. Overall, this study reveals that older adults who increase their dietary nitrate intake may improve their mood and thinking ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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16. 42 Age-Related Alterations in Representational Forms of Imagination: A Novel Scoring Protocol Applied to Autobiographical Memory.
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Hovhannisyan, Mariam, Chau, Nadine, Deffner, Austin, Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R, and Grilli, Matthew D
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SEMANTIC memory , *AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL memory , *EPISODIC memory , *IMAGINATION , *LONG-term memory , *OLDER people , *AGE factors in memory - Abstract
Objective: Human imagination is a complex system that allows us to form images or concepts in the mind that are not present to the senses. Research on imagination has been heavily influenced by the idea that humans store two distinct types of long-term memory: episodic and semantic memory. This theoretical distinction is particularly important in the context of aging, where older adults show reduced episodic memory compared to semantic memory (Levine et al., 2002). However, recent work has shown that these two memories are not as distinct as once thought (Renoult et al., 2019; Irish & Vatansever, 2020), suggesting a need to either refine the relationship between these concepts, or the concepts themselves. Here, we apply a broader framework for imagination to the autobiographical memories of older adults. Introduced by Andrews-Hanna & Grilli (2021), memory and future thoughts can be understood as the outcome of the collaboration between two representational forms of imagination: the mind's mind and the mind's eye. The mind's mind is described as a high-level, abstract form of imagination accompanied by a verbal representational form, and the mind's eye is described as a contextually-specific, image-based form of imagination. In the present study, we examine whether this broader framework for understanding imaginative thought can a) explain some of the established age-related changes in episodic and semantic memory, and b) extend beyond existing research to offer new ways to conceptualize autobiographical memory in aging. Participants and Methods: In this study, we introduce a novel scoring protocol distinguishing mind's eye from mind's mind forms of imagination and apply this protocol to the autobiographical memories of eighty-two cognitively normal older adults. Participants were instructed to retrieve unique autobiographical events, and to focus on describing event-specific details. All data were scored both with our new scoring protocol as well as the Autobiographical Interview scoring protocol from Levine et al. (2002). Results: Our novel scoring protocol demonstrated high inter-rater reliability across two raters for both mind's mind (0.95) and mind's eye (0.96) details. First, we show that the proportion of mind's mind and mind's eye details on average are significantly different, with an increased proportion of mind's eye details. Second, we find that both mind's eye detail production and mind's mind detail production is significantly reduced with age, whereas only internal details decline across age when scored with the Autobiographical Interview scoring procedure. Conclusions: The new scoring protocol suggests that both mind's mind and mind's eye details undergo change with age, a finding that shares similarities and differences with results from the Autobiographical Interview scoring technique. Taken together, our results hint at a more elaborate set of detail types forming autobiographical memories that change with age, with implications for understanding episodic and semantic memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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17. 38 Vulnerability to Semantic and Phonemic Interference in Normal Aging and Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI).
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Chasles, Marie-Joelle, Joubert, Sven, Cole, Jessica, Delage, Emilie, and Rouleau, Isabelle
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AMNESTIC mild cognitive impairment , *FACTOR structure , *PHONEME (Linguistics) , *SEMANTIC memory , *MEMORY disorders , *ALZHEIMER'S disease - Abstract
Objective: Studies on vulnerability to interference have shown promise in distinguishing between normal and pathological aging, such as the early stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) or amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). However, these studies did not include a non-semantic condition essential in distinguishing between what is attributable specifically to semantic memory impairments and more generalized vulnerability to interference. The present study aimed to determine whether the increased vulnerability to semantic interference previously observed in individuals at increased risk of AD (aMCI) is specifically associated with the semantic nature of the material, or if it also affects other types of material, suggesting more generalized executive and inhibitory impairment. Participants and Methods: Seventy-two participants (N = 72) divided into two groups (33 aMCI and 39 NC) matched for age and education were included in the study. They underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological examination, and took the adapted French version of the LASSI-L (semantic interference test), as well as a homologous experimental phonemic test, the TIP-A. Independent sample t-tests, mixed ANOVA and ANCOVA on memory and vulnerability to interference scores with the Group (NC, aMCI) as between-group factor and the Type of material (semantic, phonemic) as within-subject factor were conducted to compare memory and interference in both contexts for both groups. Results: For all memory scores, results revealed a significant main effect of group (NC > aMCI), a significant main effect of the type of material (semantic > phonemic) and a significant Group x Type interaction (disproportionately poorer performance in a semantic context for aMCI compared to NC). Word recognition was equivalent in both contexts for aMCI, whereas NC were better in a semantic context. aMCI also committed more phonemic false recognition errors, were disproportionately more vulnerable to retroactive semantic interference and showed a disproportionately higher percentage of intrusion errors associated with proactive semantic interference than NC. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to meticulously compare aMCI and elderly control vulnerability to inter-list interference and its impact on memory processes in two very similarly designed conditions using different types of material (semantic vs. phonemic). Indeed, many studies on interference focused solely on intra-list buildup of interference or on semantic material. Taken together, our results suggest that aMCI patients present generalized difficulties in source memory and inhibition, but that their inability to benefit normally from the depth of processing of semantic material results in even more semantic intrusion errors during proactive interference. This superficial semantic processing also significantly impacts the ability of aMCI to show good recall after being exposed to an interference list and the passage of time, resulting in a greater vulnerability to semantic retroactive interference than controls. In summary, our results suggest that impairment of semantic memory, and, more precisely, the loss of benefit from the depth of semantic processing, represents the cornerstone of their memory and vulnerability to interference patterns. The classical level of processing theory therefore constitutes an ideal, simple framework to predict aMCI patients' performance when facing interference, a parallel too rarely addressed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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18. 21 Assessment of Semantic Memory Decline in aMCI : Naming and Semantic Knowledge of Unique and Non-Unique Entities.
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Roy-Cöte, Frederique, Joubert, Sven, Cole, Jessica, Chasles, Marie-Joelle, Delage, Emilie, Montembeault, Maxime, and Rouleau, Isabelle
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LEXICAL access , *SEMANTIC memory , *AMNESTIC mild cognitive impairment , *MEMORY disorders , *ALZHEIMER'S disease - Abstract
Objective: Semantic memory deficits have been reported in both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). However, the nature of this decline is still a matter of debate. The aim of this study was to explore the patterns of semantic memory impairment in aMCI by examining performance on naming tasks, and on tests assessing both general and specific semantic knowledge. Participants and Methods: Participants were divided in two groups matched for age and education, one comprising 33 aMCI individuals and the other 39 healthy controls. Three experimental tests assessing naming and semantic knowledge of unique items of famous persons (FACE) and places (PLACE), logos recognition (LOGO: brands and pictograms), and non-unique entities (Boston Naming Test: BNT) were administered, and the performance of the two groups was compared. Results: Lower scores were observed on all naming tests (PLACE, FACE, LOGO and BNT) in the aMCI group compared to controls. On the PLACE test, the general knowledge mean score (M=84.5, SD=12.9) was significantly higher than the specific knowledge mean score (M=54.2, SD=18.5) in aMCI participants (t(31)=11.9, p<.001), but not in controls (general: M=92.2, SD=11.1; specific: M=73.7, SD=15.8), and there was a significant Group X Type of knowledge interaction (F(1,1)=15.13, p <.001, n2 = 18). On the FACE test, in addition to significant group and condition (naming, semantic questions) main effects, a significant interaction was found (F(1,1)=7.19, p =.009, n2 =.09). On the LOGO task, controls were significantly better on brand items (M= 94.4, SD=10.5) than on pictograms (M=83.3, SD=12.2), while no significant difference was noted in aMCI (brands: M=81.5, SD=22.6; pictograms: M=77.5, SD=14.1). Lastly, on the BNT, aMCI participants benefited more from phonemic cues than controls (F(1,1)=16.56, p<.001, n2=19), suggesting a lexical access deficit, in addition to their semantic memory impairment. Conclusions: This study adds to the growing evidence confirming the presence of semantic memory deficits in aMCI. Specific semantic knowledge seems to be more affected than general semantic knowledge, a finding reported in previous studies. Lexical access deficits, in addition to semantic decline, were also observed in the aMCI group. These results allow for a better understanding of the pattern of semantic memory deficits in the prodromal stage of AD and could potentially facilitate diagnosis of aMCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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19. Judging fast and slow: The truth effect does not increase under time-pressure conditions.
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Nadarevic, Lena, Schnuerch, Martin, and Stegemann, Marlena J.
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TIME pressure , *SEMANTIC memory , *INFORMATION overload , *PRIOR learning , *TIME perception - Abstract
Due to the information overload in today's digital age, people may sometimes feel pressured to process and judge information especially fast. In three experiments, we examined whether time pressure increases the repetition-based truth effect -- the tendency to judge repeatedly encountered statements more likely as "true" than novel statements. Based on theHeuristic-SystematicModel, a dual-process model in the field of persuasion research, we expected that time pressure would boost the truth effect by increasing reliance on processing fluency as a presumably heuristic cue for truth, and by decreasing knowledge retrieval as a presumably slow and systematic process that determines truth judgments. However, contrary to our expectation, time pressure did not moderate the truth effect. Importantly, this was the case for difficult statements, for which most people lack prior knowledge, as well as for easy statements, for which most people hold relevant knowledge. Overall, the findings clearly speak against the conception of fast, fluency-based truth judgments versus slow, knowledge-based truth judgments. In contrast, the results are compatible with a referential theory of the truth effect that does not distinguish between different types of truth judgments. Instead, it assumes that truth judgments rely on the coherence of localized networks in people's semantic memory, formed by both repetition and prior knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
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20. A Multidimensional Assessment of Metacognition Across Domains in Multiple Sclerosis.
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Mazancieux, Audrey, Moulin, Chris J.A., Casez, Olivier, and Souchay, Céline
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METACOGNITION , *MULTIPLE sclerosis , *SEMANTIC memory , *NEUROLOGICAL disorders , *EPISODIC memory - Abstract
Objective: In neurological diseases, metacognitive judgements have been widely used in order to assess the degree of disease awareness. However, as yet little research of this type has focused on multiple sclerosis (MS). Method: We here focused on an investigation of item-by-item metacognitive predictions (using feeling-of-knowing judgements) in episodic and semantic memory and global metacognitive predictions in standard neuropsychological tests pertinent to MS (processing speed and verbal fluency). Twenty-seven relapsing–remitting MS (RR-MS) patients and 27 comparison participants took part. Results: We found that RR-MS patients were as accurate as the group of comparison participants on our episodic and semantic item-by-item judgements. However, for the global predictions, we found that the MS group initially overestimated their performance (ds =.64), but only on a task on which performance was also impaired (ds =.89; processing speed). We suggest that MS patients, under certain conditions, show inaccurate metacognitive knowledge. However, postdictions and item-by-item predictions indicate that online metacognitive processes are no different from participants without MS. Conclusion: We conclude that there is no monitoring deficit in RR-MS and as such these patients should benefit from adaptive strategies and symptom education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
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21. Higher circulating α-carotene was associated with better cognitive function: an evaluation among the MIND trial participants.
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Liu, Xiaoran, Dhana, Klodian, Furtado, Jeremy D., Agarwal, Puja, Aggarwal, Neelum T., Tangney, Christy, Laranjo, Nancy, Carey, Vincent, Barnes, Lisa L., and Sacks, Frank M.
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COGNITIVE ability , *EDIBLE greens , *BUTTER , *SEMANTIC memory , *COGNITION , *FRIED food , *ALZHEIMER'S disease , *FOOD consumption - Abstract
There is emerging evidence linking fruit and vegetable consumption and cognitive function. However, studies focusing on the nutrients underlying this relationship are lacking. We aim to examine the association between plasma nutrients and cognition in a population at risk for cognitive decline with a suboptimal diet. The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) trial is a randomized controlled intervention that examines the effects of the MIND diet to prevent cognitive decline. The primary outcome is global cognition. A multivariate linear model was used to investigate the association between blood nutrients and global and/or domain-specific cognition. The model was adjusted for age, sex, education, study site, smoking status, cognitive activities and physical activities. High plasma α-carotene was associated with better global cognition. Participants in the highest tertile of plasma α-carotene had a higher global cognition z score of 0⋅17 when compared with individuals in the lowest tertile (P 0⋅002). Circulating α-carotene levels were also associated with higher semantic memory scores (P for trend 0⋅007). Lutein and zeaxanthin (combined) was positively associated with higher semantic memory scores (P for trend 0⋅009). Our study demonstrated that higher α-carotene levels in blood were associated with higher global cognition scores in a US population at risk for cognitive decline. The higher α-carotene levels in blood reflected greater intakes of fruits, other types of vegetables and lesser intakes of butter and margarine and meat. The higher circulating levels of lutein plus zeaxanthin reflected a dietary pattern with high intakes of fruits, green leafy, other vegetables and cheese, and low consumption of fried foods. Objective nutrient markers in the blood can better characterize dietary intake, which may facilitate the implementation of a tailored dietary intervention for the prevention of cognitive decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
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22. Neural meaning making, prediction, and prefrontal–subcortical development following early adverse caregiving.
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Tottenham, Nim, Gunnar, Megan R., and Cicchetti, Dante
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SEMANTIC memory , *AFFECTIVE neuroscience , *COGNITIVE neuroscience , *COGNITIVE science , *PREFRONTAL cortex , *MENTAL health - Abstract
Early adversities that are caregiving-related (crEAs) are associated with a significantly increased risk for mental health problems. Recent neuroscientific advances have revealed alterations in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)-subcortical circuitry following crEAs. While this work has identified alterations in affective operations (e.g., perceiving, reacting, controlling, learning) associated with mPFC–subcortical circuitry, this circuitry has a much broader function extending beyond operations. It plays a primary role in affective meaning making, involving conceptual-level, schematized knowledge to generate predictions about the current environment. This function of mPFC–subcortical circuitry motivates asking whether mPFC–subcortical phenotypes following crEAs support semanticized knowledge content (or the concept-level knowledge) and generate predictive models. I present a hypothesis motivated by research findings across four different lines of work that converge on mPFC–subcortical neuroanatomy, including (a) the neurobiology supporting emotion regulation processes in adulthood, (b) the neurobiology that is activated by caregiving cues during development, (c) the neurobiology that is altered by crEAs, and (d) the neurobiology of semantic-based meaning making. I hypothesize that the affective behaviors following crEAs result in part from affective semantic memory processes supported by mPFC–subcortical circuitry that over the course of development, construct affective schemas that generate meaning making and guide predictions. I use this opportunity to review some of the literature on mPFC–subcortical circuit development following crEAs to illustrate the motivation behind this hypothesis. Long recognized by clinical science and cognitive neuroscience, studying schema-based processes may be particularly helpful for understanding how affective meaning making arises from developmental trajectories of mPFC–subcortical circuitry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2020
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23. The role of non-categorical relations in establishing focus alternative sets.
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JÖRDENS, KIM A., GOTZNER, NICOLE, and SPALEK, KATHARINA
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SEMANTIC memory ,COMPREHENSION - Abstract
Categorisation is arguably the most important organising principle in semantic memory. However, elements that are not in a categorical relation can be dynamically grouped together when the context provides a common theme for these elements. In the field of sentence (and discourse) comprehension, alternatives to a focused element can be thought of as a set of elements determined by a theme given in the utterance context. According to Alternative Semantics (Rooth, 1985, 1992), the main function of linguistic focus is to introduce a set of alternatives to the focused element within an utterance. Here, we will investigate the contribution of the utterance context to the composition of focus alternative sets. Specifically, we test whether a focus alternative set can contain elements that belong to different taxonomic categories (i.e., that are not closely semantically related). Using a behavioural probe recognition experiment, we show that participants activate elements from another taxonomic category than the focused element as part of sentence comprehension. This finding suggests that the composition of a focus alternative set is not simply based on semantic relations between the members of the set and the focused element, but that contextual relations also play a crucial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2020
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24. Leukocyte Telomere Length Is Unrelated to Cognitive Performance Among Non-Demented and Demented Persons: An Examination of Long Life Family Study Participants.
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Ashrafi, Adiba, Cosentino, Stephanie, Kang, Min S., Lee, Joseph H., Schupf, Nicole, Andersen, Stacy L., Christensen, Kaare, Province, Michael A., Thyagarajan, Bharat, Zmuda, Joseph M., and Honig, Lawrence S.
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LONGEVITY , *TELOMERES , *COGNITION disorders , *COGNITION , *FAMILIES , *EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objective: Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a widely hypothesized biomarker of biological aging. Persons with shorter LTL may have a greater likelihood of developing dementia. We investigate whether LTL is associated with cognitive function, differently for individuals without cognitive impairment versus individuals with dementia or incipient dementia. Method: Enrolled subjects belong to the Long Life Family Study (LLFS), a multi-generational cohort study, where enrollment was predicated upon exceptional family longevity. Included subjects had valid cognitive and telomere data at baseline. Exclusion criteria were age ≤ 60 years, outlying LTL, and missing sociodemographic/clinical information. Analyses were performed using linear regression with generalized estimating equations, adjusting for sex, age, education, country, generation, and lymphocyte percentage. Results: Older age and male gender were associated with shorter LTL, and LTL was significantly longer in family members than spouse controls (p < 0.005). LTL was not associated with working or episodic memory, semantic processing, and information processing speed for 1613 cognitively unimpaired individuals as well as 597 individuals with dementia or incipient dementia (p < 0.005), who scored significantly lower on all cognitive domains (p < 0.005). Conclusions: Within this unique LLFS cohort, a group of families assembled on the basis of exceptional survival, LTL is unrelated to cognitive ability for individuals with and without cognitive impairment. LTL does not change in the context of degenerative disease for these individuals who are biologically younger than the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2020
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25. Case Syncretism, Animacy, and Word Order in Continental West Germanic: Neurolinguistic Evidence from a Comparative Study on Standard German, Zurich German, and Fering (North Frisian).
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Dröge, Alexander, Rabs, Elisabeth, Fleischer, Jürg, Billion, Sara K. H., Meyer, Martin, Schmid, Stephan, Schlesewsky, Matthias, and Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina
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WORD order (Grammar) ,EVOKED potentials (Electrophysiology) ,NEUROLINGUISTICS ,SEMANTIC memory ,COMPARATIVE studies ,GERMAN dialects - Abstract
To understand a sentence, it is crucial to understand who is doing what. The interplay of morphological case marking, argument serialization, and animacy provides linguistic cues for the processing system to rapidly identify the thematic roles of the arguments. The present event-related brain potential (ERP) study investigates on-line brain responses during argument identification in Zurich German, a High Alemannic dialect, and in Fering, a North Frisian variety, which both exhibit reduced case systems as compared to Standard German. Like Standard German, Zurich German and Fering are Continental West Germanic varieties, and indeed argument processing in sentences with an object-before-subject order engenders a qualitatively similar ERP pattern of a scrambling negativity followed by a P600 in all tested varieties. However, the P600 component—a late positive ERP response, which has been linked to the categorization of task-relevant stimuli—is selectively affected by the most prominent cue for argument identification in each variety, which is case marking in Standard German, but animacy in Zurich German and Fering. Thus, even closely related varieties may employ different processing strategies based on the language-specific availability of syntactic and semantic cues for argument identification.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2020
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26. Reduced Enhancement of Memory for Faces Encoded by Semantic and Socioemotional Processes in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.
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Park, Paeksoon, Yamakado, Hodaka, Takahashi, Ryosuke, Dote, Shikiho, Ubukata, Shiho, Murai, Toshiya, and Tsukiura, Takashi
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PARKINSON'S disease , *EPISODIC memory , *LONG-term memory , *FRONTAL lobe , *SEMANTIC memory , *MEMORY - Abstract
Objectives: Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) exhibit impaired semantic and socioemotional processes, which are thought to be related to dysfunctions in the fronto-striatal circuit. However, little is known about how the memory enhancement by these processes was reduced in PD. The present study investigated this issue. Methods: The retrieval performance of face memories encoded by semantic and socioemotional processes was compared between 24 PD patients and 24 age-matched healthy controls (HC). During encoding, participants were presented with unfamiliar faces and made judgment about them in three encoding conditions of semantic judgment (Semantics), attractiveness judgment (Attractiveness), and form judgment (Form). In Semantics, participants rated to what degree each face looked like an office worker, whereas in Attractiveness, participants rated how attractive each face was. The Form condition as a control required participants to judge the shape of each face. During retrieval after encoding, participants made old or new judgment for target and distracter faces. Results: In HC, the retrieval of faces encoded by Semantics and Attractiveness was significantly more accurate than that encoded by Form, whereas this memory enhancement was not identified in PD. In addition, individual scores in frontal lobe function and long-term memory correlated with the retrieval performance of memories encoded in Semantics and Attractiveness but not Form. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the processing of semantic and socioemotional signals conveyed from faces could be impaired in PD and that the impairment of these processes could decrease the enhancement of face memories by semantic and socioemotional elaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2020
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27. 70 Childhood SES and Midlife CVD on Late-life Cognition.
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Adrien, Tamare V., Hirst, Andrew, Tsai, Ai-Lin, Chen, Ruijia, Hayes-Larson, Eleanor, Levy, Shellie-Anne, Zahodne, Laura, Crane, Paul K., Peterson, Rachel, Gilsanz, Paola, and Turney, Indira
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BLACK people , *EXECUTIVE function , *VERBAL memory , *MIDDLE age , *COGNITION , *EPISODIC memory , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objective: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a well-known risk factor for cognitive impairment and dementia, particularly among minoritized groups that have experienced a history of low childhood socioeconomic status (SES). Although previous literature has linked all levels of SES to varying degrees of stress exposure, children raised in higher SES households have more access to resources and services that encourage optimal growth and development than children who grow up in lower SES households. Given the disproportionate burden of dementia and cognitive deficits within minoritized groups, the present study examined whether childhood SES is associated with later life cognition among Black and White older adults and if this association persists after accounting for hypertension, a possible mediator of the relationship between childhood SES. Participants and Methods: 1,184 participants were from the first wave of the STAR (n = 397 Black [Mage= 75.0 ±6.8 years]) and KHANDLE (386 Black [Mage= 76.2 ±7.2 years] and 401 White [Mage= 78.4 ±7.5 years]) cohorts. We used general linear models to examine the relationship between childhood SES and later-life executive function, semantic memory, and verbal memory scores, and midlife hypertension. Childhood SES was measured by self-reported perceived financial status (with participants given the following options: 'pretty well off financially', 'about average', 'poor', or 'it varied'). These models were assessed in the full sample and also stratified by race. Results: In the full sample, childhood financial status was not associated with semantic memory, verbal episodic memory, or executive function. Financial status was associated with semantic memory in Black adults (β = -.124, t(771) = -2.52, p =.01) and this association persisted after accounting for hypertension (β = -.124, t(770) = -2.53, p =.01). There was no association between childhood financial status and later life semantic memory among White adults. There was no association between childhood financial status and later life verbal episodic memory or executive function in either Black or White adults in models with or without adjustment for hypertension. Conclusions: Our findings showed no relationship between childhood SES and cognition, except for semantic memory in Black participants; this relationship persisted after accounting for midlife CVD. Future analyses will assess both direct and indirect effects of more predictive measures of childhood SES on late-life cognition with midlife CVD as a mediator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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28. 10 Semantic Memory as a Predictor of Future Memory Decline.
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Honsey, Blair, Rodriguez, Carlos, Hatfield-Eldred, Maegan, and Fernando, Heshan
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SEMANTIC memory , *RECOLLECTION (Psychology) , *EPISODIC memory , *VERBAL memory , *ALZHEIMER'S disease , *MEMORY , *VASCULAR dementia - Abstract
Objective: To determine if the degree of split between phonemic verbal fluency and semantic verbal fluency at initial visit is predictive of decline in memory performance between initial evaluation and follow-up. Participants and Methods: Data from a retrospective multidisciplinary memory clinic database at Spectrum Health was utilized. We examined data from 90 participants who had both an initial and follow-up evaluation completed (initial age = 77.1±4.7 years, follow-up age = 78.4±4.7 years, education = 13.9±3.1 years, race = 91% White, 7% Black, & 2% Hispanic, sex = 61% female, time between evaluations = 15.2±9.9 months). Patients who returned for follow-up did not meet criteria for dementia at time one. Split between phonemic and semantic fluency, termed the semantic-phonological delta (SPD) was measured at the initial evaluation by subtracting the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT; FAS) T-score from the Animal Naming Test (ANT) T-score. Change in memory score was defined in two ways: 1) subtracting the follow-up evaluation Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) List Recognition Score (RBANS percentiles were converted to a scaled score) from the initial evaluation List Recognition Score (List Recognition Delta), and 2) computing the difference in the RBANS Delayed Memory Index Standard Score between the initial evaluation and the follow-up evaluation (RBANS Memory Delta). Results: Average semantic fluency T scores were (M = 40.3, SD = 12.3) and phonemic fluency T scores were (M = 42.7, SD = 10.3) at initial evaluation. Bivariate correlations were used to determine the relationship between the clinical variables. SPD was significantly correlated with List Recognition Delta, r(88) =.23, p =.026, with greater discrepancies in verbal fluency scores associated with higher level of decline in List Recognition at follow-up. By comparison, Semantic Fluency performance itself at initial evaluation was not significantly correlated with List Recognition Delta, r(88) =.17, p =.097. The correlation between SPD and the RBANS Memory Delta was also not significant, r(88) =.14, p =.166. At follow-up evaluation, 39% of the sample received a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Of those diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, 66% had a negative SPD split at time one, performing worse on semantic fluency compared to phonemic fluency. Conclusions: SPD is a better predictor of decline in RBANS List Recognition performance between evaluations than semantic fluency alone, with a larger negative SPD score (worse semantic fluency performance compared to phonemic fluency) at initial evaluation predicting decline in List Recognition performance at follow-up evaluation. SPD at initial evaluation was not significantly correlated with change in RBANS Delayed Memory Index score between evaluations. This may be because there are some patients who are similarly impaired in both semantic and phonemic verbal fluency at initial evaluation who later demonstrate progressive decline in memory retrieval due to hippocampal-sparing etiologies (e.g., vascular dementia). Overall, these findings are consistent with previous work suggesting that declines in the semantic memory system precede declines in episodic memory retention in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2023
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29. Computational Models of Skill Acquisition
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Stellan Ohlsson
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Cognitive science ,Descriptive knowledge ,Rational analysis ,Knowledge level ,Syllogism ,Semantic memory ,Analogy ,Cognition ,Psychology ,Dreyfus model of skill acquisition - Abstract
Understanding the basis of the human abilities, to recognize, comprehend, and make inferences about objects and events in the world and to comprehend and produce statements about them, is the goal of research in semantic memory. Semantic memory is memory for meanings. In some disciplines (e.g., linguistics), the word semantics refers exclusively to the meanings of words and sentences. Collins and Quillian's model effectively uses the syllogism as a basis for organizing propositional knowledge in memory. The chapter offers a promising theoretical framework for semantic cognition. The chapter provides a simple framework for thinking about how coherent covariation between linguistic structure and other aspects of experience can promote the representation of meaning for full sentences and events. The chapter explores patterns of semantic impairment to reveal the neuroanatomical organization of the semantic system.
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- 2023
30. Semantic Memory Activation After Acute Exercise in Healthy Older Adults.
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Won, Junyeon, Alfini, Alfonso J., Weiss, Lauren R., Michelson, Corey S., Callow, Daniel D., Ranadive, Sushant M., Gentili, Rodolphe J., and Smith, J. Carson
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SEMANTIC memory , *OLDER people , *FUNCTIONAL magnetic resonance imaging , *REACTION time , *EXERCISE - Abstract
Objectives: A growing body of research suggests that regular participation in long-term exercise is associated with enhanced cognitive function. However, less is known about the beneficial effects of acute exercise on semantic memory. This study investigated brain activation during a semantic memory task after a single session of exercise in healthy older adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: Using a within-subjects counterbalanced design, 26 participants (ages, 55–85 years) underwent two experimental visits on separate days. During each visit, participants engaged in 30 min of rest or stationary cycling exercise immediately before performing a Famous and Non-Famous name discrimination task during fMRI scanning. Results: Acute exercise was associated with significantly greater semantic memory activation (Famous>Non-Famous) in the middle frontal, inferior temporal, middle temporal, and fusiform gyri. A planned comparison additionally showed significantly greater activation in the bilateral hippocampus after exercise compared to rest. These effects were confined to correct trials, and as expected, there were no differences between conditions in response time or accuracy. Conclusions: Greater brain activation following a single session of exercise suggests that exercise may increase neural processes underlying semantic memory activation in healthy older adults. These effects were localized to the known semantic memory network, and thus do not appear to reflect a general or widespread increase in brain blood flow. Coupled with our prior exercise training effects on semantic memory-related activation, these data suggest the acute increase in neural activation after exercise may provide a stimulus for adaptation over repeated exercise sessions. (JINS , 2019, 25 , 557–568) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2019
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31. A structured distributional model of sentence meaning and processing.
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Chersoni, E., Santus, E., Pannitto, L., Lenci, A., Blache, P., and Huang, C.-R.
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REPRESENTATION theory ,SEMANTIC memory ,CRIMINAL sentencing ,SEMANTICS - Abstract
Most compositional distributional semantic models represent sentence meaning with a single vector. In this paper, we propose a structured distributional model (SDM) that combines word embeddings with formal semantics and is based on the assumption that sentences represent events and situations. The semantic representation of a sentence is a formal structure derived from discourse representation theory and containing distributional vectors. This structure is dynamically and incrementally built by integrating knowledge about events and their typical participants, as they are activated by lexical items. Event knowledge is modelled as a graph extracted from parsed corpora and encoding roles and relationships between participants that are represented as distributional vectors. SDM is grounded on extensive psycholinguistic research showing that generalized knowledge about events stored in semantic memory plays a key role in sentence comprehension.We evaluate SDMon two recently introduced compositionality data sets, and our results show that combining a simple compositionalmodel with event knowledge constantly improves performances, even with dif ferent types of word embeddings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
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32. Do Alzheimer's Disease Patients Benefit From Prior-Knowledge in Associative Recognition Memory?
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Delhaye, Emma, Folville, Adrien, Simoes Loureiro, Isabelle, Lefebvre, Laurent, Salmon, Eric, and Bastin, Christine
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ASSOCIATIVE memory (Psychology) , *ALZHEIMER'S patients , *SEMANTIC memory , *MEMORY , *RECOGNITION (Psychology) , *OLDER people - Abstract
Objectives: Although the influence of prior knowledge on associative memory in healthy aging has received great attention, it has never been studied in Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study aimed at assessing whether AD patients could benefit from prior knowledge in associative memory and whether such benefit would be related to the integrity of their semantic memory. Methods: Twenty-one AD patients and 21 healthy older adults took part in an associative memory task using semantically related and unrelated word pairs and were also submitted to an evaluation of their semantic memory. Results: While participants of both groups benefited from semantic relatedness in associative discrimination, related pairs recognition was significantly predicted by semantic memory integrity in healthy older adults only. Conclusions: We suggest that patients benefitted from semantic knowledge to improve their performance in the associative memory task, but that such performance is not related to semantic knowledge integrity evaluation measures because the two tasks differ in the way semantic information is accessed: in an automatic manner for the associative memory task, with automatic processes thought to be relatively preserved in AD, and in a controlled manner for the semantic knowledge evaluation, with controlled processes thought to be impaired in AD. (JINS , 2019, 25 , 443–452) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
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33. Identification of odors, faces, cities and naming of objects in patients with subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer´s disease: a longitudinal study.
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Tahmasebi, R., Zehetmayer, S., Pusswald, G., Kovacs, G., Stögmann, E., and Lehrner, J.
- Abstract
ABSTRACTObjective:Recent studies have tried to find a reliable way of predicting the development of Alzheimer´s Disease (AD) among patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), often focusing on olfactory dysfunction or semantic memory. Our study aimed to validate these findings while also comparing the predictive accuracy of olfactory and semantic assessments for this purpose.
Method: Six hundred fifty patients (median age 68, 58% females) including controls, SCD (subjective cognitive decline), non-amnestic MCI (naMCI), amnestic MCI (aMCI), and AD patients were tested for olfactory dysfunction by means of odor identification testing and semantic memory. Of those 650 patients, 120 participants with SCD, naMCI, or aMCI at baseline underwent a follow-up examination after two years on average. Of these 120 patients, 12% had developed AD at follow-up (converters), while 88% did not develop AD at follow-up (non-converters).Results: Analysis showed a significant difference only for initial olfactory identification between converters and non-converters. Sensitivity of impairment of olfactory identification for AD prediction was low at 46.2%, although specificity was high at 81.9%. Semantic memory impairment at baseline was not significantly related to AD conversion, although, when naming objects, significant differences were found between AD patients and all other groups and between naMCI and aMCI patients compared to controls and SCD patients.Conclusions: Objective olfactory assessments are promising instruments for predicting the conversion to AD among MCI patients. However, due to their low sensitivity and high specificity, a combination with other neuropsychological tests might lead to an improved predictive accuracy. Further longitudinal studies with more participants are required to investigate the usefulness of semantic memory tests in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2019
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34. Autobiographical Memory From Different Life Stages in Individuals With Obstructive Sleep Apnea.
- Author
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Delhikar, Neha, Sommers, Lucy, Rayner, Genevieve, Schembri, Rachel, Robinson, Stephen R., Wilson, Sarah, and Jackson, Melinda L.
- Subjects
- *
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL memory , *SLEEP apnea syndromes , *EPISODIC memory , *LIFE - Abstract
Objectives: Autobiographical memory dysfunction is a marker of vulnerability to depression. Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) experience high rates of depression and memory impairment, and autobiographical memory impairments have been observed compared to healthy controls; however, these groups were not age-matched. This study aimed to determine whether individuals with untreated OSA have impaired autobiographical memory when compared to age-matched controls, and to assess the quality of autobiographical memories from three broad time points. Methods: A total of 44 participants with OSA (M age=49.4±13.0) and 44 age-matched controls (M age=50.0±13.1) completed the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) to assess semantic and episodic memories from three different life stages, and 44 OSA participants and 37 controls completed the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) to assess overgeneral memory recall (an inability to retrieve specific memories). Results: OSA participants had significantly poorer semantic recall of early adult life on the AMI (p <.001), and more overgeneral autobiographical memories recalled on the AMT (=.001), than controls. Poor semantic recall from early adult life was significantly correlated with more depressive symptoms (p =0.006) and lower education (p <0.02), while higher overgeneral memory recall was significantly associated with older age (p =.001). Conclusions: A specific deficit in semantic autobiographical recall was observed in individuals with OSA. OSA patients recalled more overgeneral memories, suggesting that aspects of the sleep disorder affect their ability to recollect specific details of events from their life. These cognitive features of OSA may contribute to the high incidence of depression in this population. (JINS 2019, 25 , 266–274) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
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35. Automated Indices of Clustering and Switching of Semantic Verbal Fluency in Parkinson's Disease.
- Author
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Farzanfar, Delaram, Statucka, Marta, and Cohn, Melanie
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- *
PARKINSON'S disease , *VERBAL behavior testing , *RELATEDNESS (Psychology) , *NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL tests , *SEMANTIC memory - Abstract
Objectives: Deficits in semantic verbal fluency (SVF) can stem from dysfunction of an executive control system and/or of semantic knowledge. Previous analyses of SVF responses were devised to characterize these two components including switching and mean cluster size (MCS) indices, but these rely on subjective experimenter-based assessment of the words' relatedness. To address this limitation, computational data-driven SVF indices have been developed. Our aim is to assess the validity and usefulness of these automated indices in the context of cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: This is a retrospective study including 50 advanced PD patients with (n =28) or without (n =22) mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). We analyzed animal SVF outputs using an automated computational approach yielding switching, MCS, and cumulative relatedness (CuRel) indices. We compared these indices to the classic experimenter-based switching and MCS indices to assess concurrent validity, and against neuropsychological measures of executive functioning and semantic knowledge to assess construct validity. We also examined whether these indices were impaired and predicted PD-MCI. Results: Automated switching indices, but not MCS or CuRel, showed evidence of concurrent and construct validity, and characterized individual difference in advanced PD. Automated switching indices also outperformed the experimenter-dependent index in predicting the presence of PD-MCI. Conclusion: Computational methods hold promise as fine-grained, unbiased indices reflecting the executive component of SVF, but none of the methods provided valid measures of semantic knowledge in PD. Our data also confirm that SVF are not adequate tests of semantic memory in patients with executive dysfunction such as PD. (JINS , 2018, 24 , 1047–1056) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
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36. Brain Arterial Diameters and Cognitive Performance: The Northern Manhattan Study.
- Author
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Gutierrez, Jose, Kulick, Erin, Park Moon, Yeseon, Dong, Chuanhui, Cheung, Ken, Ahmet, Bagci, Stern, Yaakov, Alperin, Noam, Rundek, Tatjana, Sacco, Ralph L., Wright, Clinton B., and Elkind, Mitchell S.V.
- Subjects
- *
MAGNETIC resonance imaging , *EXECUTIVE function , *SEMANTIC memory , *EPISODIC memory , *POSTERIOR cerebral artery , *MILD cognitive impairment - Abstract
Objectives: To test the hypothesis that brain arterial diameters are associated with cognitive performance, particularly in arteries supplying domain-specific territories. Methods: Stroke-free participants in the Northern Manhattan Study were invited to have a brain MRI from 2003–2008. The luminal diameters of 13 intracranial arterial segments were obtained using time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA), and then averaged and normalized into a global score and region-specific arterial diameters. Z-Scores for executive function, semantic memory, episodic memory and processing speed were obtained at MRI and during follow-up. Adjusted generalized additive models were used to assess for associations. Results: Among the 1034 participants with neurocognitive testing and brain MRI, there were non-linear relationships between left anterior (ACA) and middle cerebral artery (MCA) diameter and semantic memory Z-scores (χ2=10.00; DF=3; p=.019), and left posterior cerebral artery (PCA) and posterior communicating artery (Pcomm) mean diameter and episodic memory Z-scores (χ2=9.88; DF=3; p=.020). Among the 745 participants who returned for 2nd neuropsychological testing, on average 5.0±0.4 years after their MRI, semantic memory change was associated non-linearly with the left PCA/Pcomm mean diameter (χ2=13.09; DF=3; p=.004) and with the right MCA/ACA mean diameter (χ2=8.43; DF=3; p=.03). In both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, participants with the larger brain arterial diameters had more consistently lower Z-scores and greater decline than the rest of the participants. Conclusions: Brain arterial diameters may have downstream effects in brain function presenting as poorer cognition. Identifying the mechanisms and the directionality of such interactions may increase the understanding of the vascular contribution to cognitive impairment and dementia. (JINS, 2018, 24, 335–346) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
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37. Semantic memory and depressive symptoms in patients with subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease.
- Author
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Lehrner, J., Coutinho, G., Mattos, P., Moser, D., Pflüger, M., Gleiss, A., Auff, E., Dal-Bianco, P., Pusswald, G., and Stögmann, E.
- Abstract
Background: Semantic memory may be impaired in clinically recognized states of cognitive impairment. We investigated the relationship between semantic memory and depressive symptoms (DS) in patients with cognitive impairment.Methods: 323 cognitively healthy controls and 848 patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia were included. Semantic knowledge for famous faces, world capitals, and word vocabulary was investigated.Results: Compared to healthy controls, we found a statistically significant difference of semantic knowledge in the MCI groups and the AD group, respectively. Results of the SCD group were mixed. However, two of the three semantic memory measures (world capitals and word vocabulary) showed a significant association with DS.Conclusions: We found a difference in semantic memory performance in MCI and AD as well as an association with DS. Results suggest that the difference in semantic memory is due to a storage loss rather than to a retrieval problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2017
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38. On the semantic optimum and contexts.
- Author
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Calabria, Marco
- Subjects
- *
BRAIN degeneration , *PHONOLOGY , *SEMANTIC memory , *PHONOLOGICAL encoding , *CONCEPT mapping , *BILINGUALISM - Abstract
Bordag, Gor, and Opitz do not explicitly include in their model the control dimension as a modulator of semantic optimum. In their keynote article, Bordag, Gor and Opitz (2021) describe a functional model of L2 lexical representations by combining different linguistic dimensions of language acquisition into a comprehensive ontogenetic account. References 1 Bordag D, Gor K and Opitz A. (2021). [Extracted from the article]
- Published
- 2022
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39. Processes of Utterance Interpretation: For a Neuropragmatics
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Victor J. Boucher
- Subjects
Interpretation (logic) ,Computer science ,business.industry ,Basal ganglia ,Semantic memory ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,computer.software_genre ,Episodic memory ,computer ,Utterance ,Natural language processing ,Chunking (computing) - Published
- 2021
40. Patients with amnestic MCI Fail to Adapt Executive Control When Repeatedly Tested with Semantic Verbal Fluency Tasks
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Jessica Peter, Nicklas Linz, Johannes Tröger, Hali Lindsay, Jutta Kray, Mario Magued Mina, and Stefan Klöppel
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medicine.medical_specialty ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Audiology ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,050105 experimental psychology ,Task (project management) ,Executive Function ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Semantic memory ,Verbal fluency test ,Cognitive Dysfunction ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,In patient ,Latency (engineering) ,Control (linguistics) ,Set (psychology) ,Point (typography) ,General Neuroscience ,05 social sciences ,Semantics ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Clinical Psychology ,150 Psychologie ,Neurology (clinical) ,Psychology ,610 Medizin und Gesundheit ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Objective:Semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks require individuals to name items from a specified category within a fixed time. An impaired SVF performance is well documented in patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). The two leading theoretical views suggest either loss of semantic knowledge or impaired executive control to be responsible.Method:We assessed SVF 3 times on 2 consecutive days in 29 healthy controls (HC) and 29 patients with aMCI with the aim to answer the question which of the two views holds true.Results:When doing the task for the first time, patients with aMCI produced fewer and more common words with a shorter mean response latency. When tested repeatedly, only healthy volunteers increased performance. Likewise, only the performance of HC indicated two distinct retrieval processes: a prompt retrieval of readily available items at the beginning of the task and an active search through semantic space towards the end. With repeated assessment, the pool of readily available items became larger in HC, but not patients with aMCI.Conclusion:The production of fewer and more common words in aMCI points to a smaller search set and supports the loss of semantic knowledge view. The failure to improve performance as well as the lack of distinct retrieval processes point to an additional impairment in executive control. Our data did not clearly favour one theoretical view over the other, but rather indicates that the impairment of patients with aMCI in SVF is due to a combination of both.
- Published
- 2021
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41. Assessing the Relationship between Semantic Processing and Thought Disorder Symptoms in Schizophrenia.
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Tan, Eric Josiah, Neill, Erica, and Rossell, Susan Lee
- Subjects
- *
COGNITION disorders , *SCHIZOPHRENIA , *SEMANTIC memory , *PRIMING (Psychology) , *SYMPTOMS - Abstract
Aberrant semantic processing has been linked to the etiology of formal thought disorder (TD) symptoms in schizophrenia. In this cross-sectional study, two prominent theories, overactivation and disorganized structure of semantic memory (SM), were examined in relation to TD symptoms using the continuum approach across two established semantic tasks (direct/indirect semantic priming and categorical fluency). The aim was to examine the validity of the two TD theories in relation to TD symptoms in schizophrenia. Greater direct and indirect priming, fluency productivity and category errors were expected if the data supported the overactivation theory. Reduced fluency productivity and increased category errors would be characteristic of disorganized storage. Fifty-seven schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder patients and 48 controls completed a clinical assessment and the semantic tasks. There was significantly reduced direct priming in patients compared to controls (p<.05), while indirect priming was not significantly different; there was no association between TD and degree of priming. Patients produced more category-inappropriate words (p<.005) than controls, which was related to increasing severity of circumstantiality. The pattern of results was more indicative of a disorganized SM storage problem in this sample. This phenomenon may underlie some TD symptoms in general schizophrenia. The findings strengthen the relationship between SM deficits and TD symptoms, though this appears to differ between individual symptoms. The authors discuss the value of the continuum approach in addressing research questions in TD etiology. Given low levels of TD in this study, replication of these findings in a sample with greater TD is desirable. (JINS, 2015, 21, 629–638) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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42. Word Association Norms in Mexican Spanish.
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Barrón-Martínez, Julia B. and Arias-Trejo, Natalia
- Subjects
- *
SOCIAL norms , *VOCABULARY , *ASSOCIATION tests , *SEMANTIC memory , *LEXICAL phonology - Abstract
The aim of this research is to present a Spanish Word Association Norms (WAN) database of concrete nouns. The database includes 234 stimulus words (SWs) and 67,622 response words (RWs) provided by 478 young Mexican adults. Eight different measures were calculated to quantitatively analyze word-word relationships: 1) Associative strength of the first associate, 2) Associative strength of the second associate, 3) Sum of associative strength of first two associates, 4) Difference in associative strength between first two associates, 5) Number of different associates, 6) Blank responses, 7) Idiosyncratic responses, and 8) Cue validity of the first associate. The resulting database is an important contribution given that there are no published word association norms for Mexican Spanish. The results of this study are an important resource for future research regarding lexical networks, priming effects, semantic memory, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
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43. The effect of a bilingual learning mode on the establishment of lexical semantic representations in the L2.
- Author
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ELGORT, IRINA and PIASECKI, ANNA E.
- Subjects
- *
BILINGUALISM , *LANGUAGE acquisition , *LEXICAL access , *SEMANTICS , *ORTHOGRAPHY & spelling - Abstract
Deliberate vocabulary learning is common in the L2, however, questions remain about most efficient and effective forms of this learning approach. Bilingual models of L2 word learning and processing can be used to make predictions about outcomes of learning new vocabulary from bilingual (L2–L1) flashcards, and these predictions can be tested experimentally. In the present study, 41 late adult German–English bilinguals learned 48 English pseudowords using bilingual flashcards. Quality of component lexical representations established for the studied items was probed using form priming and semantic priming. The results show that, although all participants were able to establish robust orthographic representations of the studied items, only bilinguals with large L2 vocabularies established high-quality lexical semantic representations. With neither the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) nor the Sense Model able to fully account for these findings, an alternative explanation based on a distributed semantic features view of word learning is proposed. Learning implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
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44. Disorders of “taste cognition” are associated with insular involvement in patients with Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia: “Memory of food is impaired in dementia and responsible for poor diet”.
- Author
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Suto, Teiko, Meguro, Kenichi, Nakatsuka, Masahiro, Kato, Yuriko, Tezuka, Kimihiro, Yamaguchi, Satoshi, and Tashiro, Manabu
- Abstract
Background:In dementia patients, dietary intake problems may occur despite the absence of swallowing problems. We investigated cognitive functions on food and taste in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) patients.Methods:Participants included 15 healthy controls (HC), 30 AD and 20 VaD patients. Food Cognition Test: Replicas of three popular foods in Japan with no odors were presented visually to each participant, with the instruction to respond with the name of each food. Replicas of food materials were subsequently presented to ask whether they were included in these foods. Taste Cognition Test: Replicas of 12 kinds of foods were presented to describe their expected tastes.Results:The AD/VaD groups exhibited significantly lower scores on Food/Taste Cognition Tests compared with the HC group. These scores correlated inversely with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores in the AD group. Decreased dietary intake was observed in 12 of the 50 patients; 8 of the 12 exhibited decreased Taste Cognition Test scores, higher than that of the normal-intake patients. There was no difference in the filter paper taste disc test between HC/AD/VaD groups. To test the hypothesis that the insula is associated with taste cognition, two MMSE-matched AD subgroups (n = 10 vs. 10) underwent positron emission tomography. Glucose metabolism in the right insula was lower in the low taste cognition subgroup. The VaD patients with insular lesions exhibited impaired Taste Cognition Test findings.Conclusions:It is important to consider the cognitive aspect of dietary intake when we care for dementia patients. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
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45. Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Concept and Diagnostic Entity in Need of Input from Neuropsychology.
- Author
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Bondi, Mark W. and Smith, Glenn E.
- Subjects
- *
MILD cognitive impairment , *NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , *NEUROPSYCHIATRY , *MEDICAL screening , *NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL tests , *MEDICAL informatics - Abstract
This virtual issue consists of studies previously published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society and selected on the basis of their content related to one of the most highly researched concepts in behavioral neurology and neuropsychology over the past decade: mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The reliance on cognitive screening measures, staging-based rating scales, and limited neuropsychological testing in diagnosing MCI across most research studies may miss individuals with subtle cognitive declines or mis-diagnose MCI in those who are otherwise cognitively normal on a broader neuropsychological battery of tests. The assembled articles highlight the perils of relying on these conventional criteria for MCI diagnosis and reveal how the reliability of diagnosis is improved when sound neuropsychological approaches are adopted. When these requirements are met, we illustrate with a second series of articles that neuropsychological measures associate strongly with biomarkers and often reflect pathology beyond or instead of typical AD distributions. The final set of articles reveal that people with MCI demonstrate mild but identifiable functional difficulties, and a challenge for neuropsychology is how to incorporate this information to better define MCI and distinguish it from early dementia. Neuropsychology is uniquely positioned to improve upon the state of the science in MCI research and practice by providing critically important empirical information on the specific cognitive domains affected by the predominant neurodegenerative disorders of late life as well as on the diagnostic decision-making strategies used in studies. When such efforts to more comprehensively assess neuropsychological functions are undertaken, better characterizations of spared and impaired cognitive and functional abilities result and lead to more convincing associations with other biomarkers as well as to prediction of clinical outcomes. (JINS, 2014, 20, 129–134) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
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46. Electrophysiological signatures of English onomatopoeia
- Author
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Rosanna Todd, Gabriella Vigliocco, Jyrki Tuomainen, Nicola Del Maschio, Ye Zhang, Vigliocco, G., Zhang, Y. E., Del Maschio, N., Todd, R., and Tuomainen, J.
- Subjects
Linguistics and Language ,05 social sciences ,Word processing ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Phonology ,iconicity ,Concreteness ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,N400 ,onomatopoeia ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Salience (neuroscience) ,Onomatopoeia ,word processing ,Semantic memory ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,EEG ,Psychology ,Iconicity ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,ERP ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Onomatopoeia is widespread across the world’s languages. They represent a relatively simple iconic mapping: the phonological/phonetic properties of the word evokes acoustic related features of referents. Here, we explore the EEG correlates of processing onomatopoeia in English. Participants were presented with a written cue-word (e.g., leash) and then with a spoken target-word. The target-word was either an onomatopoeia (e.g., bark), a sound-related but arbitrary word (e.g., melody), or another arbitrary word (e.g., bike). Participants judged whether the cue- and the target-word were similar in meaning. We analysed Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in different time-windows: (i) early (100–200 and 200–250 ms) to assess differences in processing at the form-level; (ii) the N400 time-window (300–500 ms) in order to establish if there are differences in semantic processing across our word-types; and (iii) late (600–900 ms) to assess post-lexical effects. We found that onomatopoeia differed from the other words in the N400 time-window: when cue and target were unrelated, onomatopoeic words led to greater negativity which can be accounted for in terms of enhanced semantic activation of onomatopoeia which leads to greater salience of the mismatch. We discuss results in the context of a growing body of literature investigating iconicity in language processing and development.
- Published
- 2020
47. Morphological and Semantic Processing in Developmental Dyslexia
- Author
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Catherine Mimeau, Xiuli Tong, and S. Hélène Deacon
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Developmental dyslexia ,Semantic memory ,Psychology - Published
- 2019
48. Decreased Cognitive Function in Extended Family Members from the Single Late-Onset-Alzheimer's-Disease Pedigree.
- Author
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Zeng, Yan, Chang, Wei, Shu, Chang, Ma, Lina, Huang, Yuanyuan, Wang, Ruoshi, Zhang, Junpeng, Zhu, Changcai, and McClintock, Shawn M.
- Subjects
- *
COGNITIVE ability , *ALZHEIMER'S disease risk factors , *GENEALOGY , *DEMENTIA , *COGNITIVE testing , *SEMANTIC memory , *EXECUTIVE function - Abstract
A family history of dementia is associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) late in life (LOAD). This study marked the first attempt to assess the familial contribution to differences in cognitive performance in a large family-based group in the Chinese community. We enrolled 168 participants without dementia from a single pedigree with 9 probable AD patients diagnosed after age 65. These participants were evaluated with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, the Chinese version of the Mini Mental State Examination, and the Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale–Cognitive Subscale. Analyses found that extended family members of the LOAD pedigree showed similar performance on measures of global cognitive function and semantic memory compared to controls, but lower scores on episodic memory, attention, and executive function measures. These results indicate that the genetic influences on certain sub-cognitive domains are more detectable despite normal global cognitive function, and that family members with the LOAD pedigree are at risk for developing LOAD by virtue of their family history with an additive risk due to increased age. The findings in this study support the importance of documenting if there is a positive family history of AD in clinical evaluations. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
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49. Effects of Early Thyroid Hormone Deficiency on Children's Autobiographical Memory Performance.
- Author
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Willoughby, Karen A., McAndrews, Mary Pat, and Rovet, Joanne
- Subjects
- *
THYROID hormones , *AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL memory , *HIPPOCAMPUS diseases , *CONGENITAL hypothyroidism , *PREGNANCY complications , *DEVELOPMENTAL neurobiology , *LONG-term memory - Abstract
Memory deficits and hippocampal abnormalities have been described in individuals with thyroid hormone (TH) insufficiencies; however, no study has yet examined their autobiographical memory (AM) abilities, which are known to be compromised by hippocampal damage. Investigations in adults have shown that AM consists of both episodic and semantic components and that the hippocampus is preferentially involved in episodic AM. The present study used the Children's Autobiographical Interview (CAI) to study episodic and semantic AM in 79 children aged 9 to 14 years, including 26 with early-treated congenital hypothyroidism (CH), 23 born to women with inadequately treated hypothyroidism during pregnancy (HYPO), and 30 typically developing controls. Results showed that relative to controls, CH and HYPO groups both exhibited weaknesses in episodic AM, but not semantic AM. In particular, CH and HYPO groups showed difficulty in recalling event details (i.e., the main happenings) and visual details from past experiences. Overall, this study highlights the importance of TH for early neurodevelopment and provides critical new insight into the effects of early treated TH deficiency on long-term memory performance. Furthermore, the present study indicates that the CAI is an effective tool for investigating episodic AM impairment in clinical pediatric populations. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
50. The Impact of Semantic Dementia on Everyday Actions: Evidence from an Ecological Study.
- Author
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Bier, Nathalie, Bottari, Carolina, Hudon, Carol, Joubert, Sven, Paquette, Guillaume, and Macoir, Joël
- Subjects
- *
DEMENTIA , *SEMANTIC memory , *MEMORY disorders , *FRONTAL lobe , *EVERYDAY life , *CONTROL groups , *PROBLEM solving - Abstract
In theory, semantic memory may trigger and support the execution of everyday activities. This study explored this question by comparing three patients with semantic dementia to 40 normal controls performing different everyday activities. Participants were tested in their home using the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Profile, an ecological measure of everyday functioning. Participants were informed that they had unknowingly invited two guests for lunch and should prepare accordingly. With these instructions, they dress to go outdoors, go to the grocery store, shop for food, prepare a hot meal, have the meal with the guests, and clean up after the meal. Performance was analyzed on the basis of four operations related to problem solving: formulate a goal, plan, execute, and verify attainment of the goal. Results indicate that compared to normal controls, two patients had significant difficulties and needed assistance with all operations of problem-solving, particularly while preparing a meal and cleaning up after the meal. One patient showed no difficulties despite severe semantic deficits. These results suggest that semantic deficits alone cannot explain the difficulties observed, but may contribute to some aspects of everyday actions such as those involved in everyday problem-solving. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–11) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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