Work

Effects of Distinctive Encoding on Source-based False Recognition

Year: 2008

Type: article

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To examine the use of distinctive materials at encoding on recall-to-reject monitoring processes in aging and Alzheimer disease (AD). BACKGROUND: AD patients, and to a lesser extent older adults, have shown an impaired ability to use recollection-based monitoring processes (eg, recall-to-reject) to avoid various types of false memories, such as source-based false recognition. METHOD: Younger adults, healthy older adults, and AD patients engaged in an incidental learning task, in which critical category exemplars were either accompanied by a distinctive picture or were presented as only words. Later, participants studied a series of categorized lists in which several typical exemplars were omitted and were then given a source memory test. RESULTS: Both older and younger adults made more accurate source attributions after picture encoding compared with word-only encoding, whereas AD patients did not exhibit this distinctiveness effect. CONCLUSIONS: These results extend those of previous studies showing that monitoring in older adults can be enhanced with distinctive encoding, and suggest that such monitoring processes in AD patients many be insensitive to distinctiveness.

Source: Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology

DOI: 10.1097/wnn.0b013e31817d74e7

Authors: Benton H. Pierce, Jill D. Waring, Daniel L. Schacter, Andrew E. Budson

Institutions: East Texas A&M University, Boston College, Boston University, Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, Harvard University

Language: English

Topic: Memory Processes and Influences

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging