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24 results

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  • 2 Untangling Subjective and Objective Memory in Aging: The Effects of Strategy Use and Gender Differences on Associative Memory Performance

  • Caitlin M. Terao, Sara Pishdadian, Morris Moscovitch, R. Shayna Rosenbaum
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    21 December 2023, pp. 677-678
    • Article
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  • Objective:

    In normative aging, there is a decline in associative memory that appears to relate to self-reported everyday use of general memory strategies (Guerrero et al., 2021). Self-reported general strategy use is also strongly associated with self-reported memory abilities (Frankenmolen et al., 2017), which, in turn, are weakly associated with objective memory performance (Crumley et al., 2014). Associative memory abilities and strategy use appear to differ by gender, with women outperforming men and using more memory strategies (Hertzog et al., 2019). In this study, we examine how actual performance and self-reported use of specific strategies on an associative memory task relate to each other and to general, everyday strategy use, and whether these differ by gender.

    Participants and Methods:

    An international sample of older adults (N = 566, 53% female, aged 60-80) were administered a demographic questionnaire and online tasks, including 1. the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ) which measures self-reported memory ability, satisfaction, and everyday strategy use (Troyer & Rich, 2018); and 2. the Face-Name Task which measures associative memory (Troyer et al., 2011). Participants were also asked about specific strategies that were used to complete the Face-Name Task.

    Results:

    On the Face-Name Task, participants who reported using more strategies performed better (F(3, 562) = 6.51, p < 0.001, n2 = 0.03), with those who reported using three or four strategies performing best (p < .05). There was a significant difference in performance based on the type of strategy used (p(2, 563) = 11.36, p < 0.001, n2 = 0.04), with individuals who relied on a “past experiences/knowledge” strategy performing best (p < .01). Women (M = 0.79, SD = 0.19) outperformed men (M = 0.71, SD = 0.20), f(545) = -4.64, p < 0.001, d = -0.39. No gender differences were found in the number (X2(3, N = 564) = 2.06, p = 0.561) or type (x2(2, N = 564) = 5.49, p = 0.064) of strategies used on the Face-Name Task. Only participants who reported using no strategies on the Face-Name Task had lower scores on the MMQ everyday strategy use subscale (p < .05). A multiple-regression model was used to investigate the relative contributions of the number of strategies used on the Face-Name Task, MMQ everyday strategy subscale score, gender, age, education, and psychological distress to Face-Name Task performance. The only significant predictors in the model were gender (B = 0.08, t(555) = 4.55, p < 0.001) and use of two or more strategies (B = 0.07, f(555) = 2.82, p = 0.005).

    Conclusions:

    Reports of greater self-initiated strategy use, and use of a semantic strategy in particular, related to better performance on an associative memory test in older adults. Self-initiated, task-specific strategy use also related to everyday strategy use. The findings extend past work on gender differences to show that women outperform men on an associative memory task but that this is unlikely to be due to self-reported differences in strategy use. The results suggest that self-reported strategy use predicts actual associative memory performance and should be considered in clinical practice.

  • Self-Reference Effect and Self-Reference Recollection Effect for Trait Adjectives in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

  • Nicole Carson, R. Shayna Rosenbaum, Morris Moscovitch, Kelly J. Murphy
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 24 / Issue 8 / September 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 August 2018, pp. 821-832

  • Objectives: The self-reference effect (SRE), enhanced memory for self-related information, has been studied in healthy young and older adults but has had little investigation in people with age-related memory disorders, such as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Self-referential encoding may help to improve episodic memory in aMCI. Additionally, self-referential processing has been shown to benefit recollection, the vivid re-experiencing of past events, a phenomenon that has been termed the self-reference recollection effect (SRRE; Conway & Dewhurst, 1995). Furthermore, it remains unclear whether the valence of stimuli influences the appearance of the SRE and SRRE. Methods: The current study investigated the SRE and SRRE for trait adjective words in 20 individuals with aMCI and 30 healthy older adult controls. Ninety trait adjective words were allocated to self-reference, semantic, or structural encoding conditions; memory was later tested using a recognition test. Results: While healthy older adults showed a SRE, individuals with aMCI did not benefit from self-referential encoding over and above that of semantic encoding (an effect of “deep encoding”). A similar pattern was apparent for the SRRE; healthy controls showed enhanced recollection for words encoded in the self-reference condition, while the aMCI group did not show specific benefit to recollection for self-referenced over semantically encoded items. No effects of valence were found. Conclusions: These results indicate that while memory for trait adjective words can be improved in aMCI with deep encoding strategies (whether self-reference or semantic), self-referencing does not provide an additional benefit. (JINS, 2018, 24, 821–832)

  • 11 - Memory Consolidation and Transformation: The Hippocampus and Mental Time Travel

  • from Section B - Cognitive and Social Neuroscience
  • Edited by Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, New Jersey, Donald J. Foss, University of Houston
  • Book:
    Scientists Making a Difference
    Published online:
    05 August 2016
    Print publication:
    11 August 2016, pp 53-57

  • Summary

    Background

    Older adults with failing memories often state that they have difficulty remembering what happened to them yesterday, yet they can remember very well events that occurred when they were in high school or college. These impressions were probably noted from time immemorial, but they were given scientific credibility by Ribot, a nineteenth-century French neurologist, who proposed that following brain damage, recent memories are more likely to be lost than remote ones. Even relatively mild damage, such as a concussion sustained during sport or in a car accident, will cause similar effects. The reason given for this pattern of lost and preserved memories is that remote memories were consolidated (made relatively permanent) in the brain before the onset of damage (or deterioration, in the case of older adults), whereas the damage hindered the consolidation of more recent memories and left them vulnerable to decay or interference.

    In the 1950s, Brenda Milner and her collaborators, William Scoville and Wilder Penfield, reported that damage to the hippocampus, a region on the inside surface of the medial temporal lobes, which lie next to your temples, leads to a profound amnesia that conformed to Ribot's Law. Henry Molaison (H.M.), the most celebrated of the neurosurgical patients, could acquire few, if any, memories of which he was consciously aware from the time of his surgery in 1953 to his death in 2008. Initial, casual observation indicated, however, that he remembered events that occurred prior to his surgery very well. Based on this evidence, and that of similar cases, investigators concluded that the hippocampus is a temporary memory structure that helps retain and retrieve memories until they are consolidated in other parts of the brain. Once consolidated, the hippocampus is no longer needed for their retention or recovery; these functions would now be mediated by other parts of the brain. This was the standard consolidation theory accepted by most neuroscientists and enshrined in most textbooks.

    My Contribution

    Fifty years after the report on H.M. was published, the standard consolidation theory reigned supreme. Lynn Nadel, Gordon Winocur, and I, with the help of our students and collaborators, dethroned this theory and replaced it with an alternative, which has evolved into the “Multiple Trace Theory and Trace Transformation.” According to this theory, every time you consciously experience a new event or think of an old one, the hippocampus automatically lays down a memory trace.

  • Differential Contributions of Executive and Episodic Memory Functions to Problem Solving in Younger and Older Adults

  • Susan Vandermorris, Signy Sheldon, Gordon Winocur, Morris Moscovitch
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 19 / Issue 10 / November 2013
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 September 2013, pp. 1087-1096

  • The relationship of higher order problem solving to basic neuropsychological processes likely depends on the type of problems to be solved. Well-defined problems (e.g., completing a series of errands) may rely primarily on executive functions. Conversely, ill-defined problems (e.g., navigating socially awkward situations) may, in addition, rely on medial temporal lobe (MTL) mediated episodic memory processes. Healthy young (N = 18; M = 19; SD = 1.3) and old (N = 18; M = 73; SD = 5.0) adults completed a battery of neuropsychological tests of executive and episodic memory function, and experimental tests of problem solving. Correlation analyses and age group comparisons demonstrated differential contributions of executive and autobiographical episodic memory function to well-defined and ill-defined problem solving and evidence for an episodic simulation mechanism underlying ill-defined problem solving efficacy. Findings are consistent with the emerging idea that MTL-mediated episodic simulation processes support the effective solution of ill-defined problems, over and above the contribution of frontally mediated executive functions. Implications for the development of intervention strategies that target preservation of functional independence in older adults are discussed. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–10)

  • 6 - The contribution of research on autobiographical memory to past and present theories of memory consolidation

  • Edited by Dorthe Berntsen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark, David C. Rubin, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book:
    Understanding Autobiographical Memory
    Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    27 September 2012, pp 91-113

  • Summary

    The past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.

    – William Faulkner

    How memories are consolidated is a problem that is at the core of memory research. Without consolidation, memories are fleeting; distraction, interference, noxious agents, drugs, brain damage, or the mere passage of time will disrupt and eliminate them. Consolidation is the time and experience-dependent process by which newly acquired memories become stabilized so that they are relatively immune to disruption by all these influences. Not surprisingly, therefore, consolidation has been a topic of investigation since the beginning of the scientific study of memory. In this chapter, I will focus on the role that autobiographical memory has played in our understanding of the neural mechanisms implicated in consolidation.

    The turn of the twentieth century

    Autobiographical memory played a significant role in establishing that brain damage or trauma can disrupt consolidation, and continues to play this role during bedside investigations of memory loss. Patients are asked routinely if they know where they are, what brought them to this location, what they did recently, and what they remember about their more remote past, such as the schools they attended, the friends they had, the jobs they held, and so on. They also are asked questions regarding general knowledge, such as who is the current mayor or head of the country, and about news events from the recent and remote past. Based on such anecdotal evidence, investigators dating back to the end of the nineteenth century concluded that recent memories are more vulnerable to disruption than remote memories, presumably because the latter had an opportunity to become consolidated whereas the former did not (Ribot, 1882). The term “consolidation” was coined by Müller and Pilzecker (1900) to account for the results of their behavioral, laboratory-based experiments in which they measured the time it took newly learned memories to become resistant to disruption by a subsequent, to-be-remembered event. By 1904, Burnham concluded:

    The fixing [consolidation] of an impression depends on a physiological process. It takes time for an impression to become so fixed that it can be reproduced after a long interval; for it to become part of the permanent store of memory considerable time may be necessary. This we may suppose is not merely a process of making a permanent impression upon the nerve cells, but also a process of association, of organization of the new impressions with the old ones.

The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness
  • Edited by Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch, Evan Thompson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    14 May 2007
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.

  • Memory Transformation and Systems Consolidation

  • Gordon Winocur, Morris Moscovitch
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 17 / Issue 5 / September 2011
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 June 2011, pp. 766-780

  • With time and experience, memories undergo a process of reorganization that involves different neuronal networks, known as systems consolidation. The traditional view, as articulated in standard consolidation theory (SCT), is that (episodic and semantic) memories initially depend on the hippocampus, but eventually become consolidated in their original forms in other brain regions. In this study, we review the main principles of SCT and report evidence from the neuropsychological literature that would not be predicted by this theory. By comparison, the evidence supports an alternative account, the transformation hypothesis, whose central premise is that changes in neural representation in systems consolidation are accompanied by corresponding changes in the nature of the memory. According to this view, hippocampally dependent, episodic, or context-specific memories transform into semantic or gist-like versions that are represented in extra-hippocampal structures. To the extent that episodic memories are retained, they will continue to require the hippocampus, but the hippocampus is not needed for the retrieval of semantic memories. The transformation hypothesis emphasizes the dynamic nature of memory, as well as the underlying functional and neural interactions that must be taken into account in a comprehensive theory of memory. (JINS, 2011, 17, 766–780)

  • Chapter 1 - Consciousness: an introduction

  • Edited by Philip David Zelazo, University of Toronto, Morris Moscovitch, University of Toronto, Evan Thompson, University of York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    14 May 2007, pp -

  • Summary

    This introduction provides an overview of the concepts discussed in the various chapters of this volume on consciousness. This volume attempts to survey the major developments in a wide range of intellectual domains to give the reader an appreciation of the state of the field and where it is heading. The development of new techniques has made it possible to treat consciousness in a more rigorous and scientifically respectable fashion. These techniques include electrophysiological methods, such as magneto-encephalography (MEG), and various types of functional neuroimaging, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). There is currently considerable interest in exploring the neural correlates of consciousness. The volume covers philosophical approaches to consciousness from a variety of cultural perspectives, including continental phenomenology and Asian philosophy. It is organized mainly around a broad (sometimes untenable) distinction between cognitive scientific approaches and neuroscientific approaches.

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