Assessing Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Alzheimer's Disease

MacDonald, Maryellen C.; Almor, Amit; Henderson, Victor W.; Kempler, Daniel; Andersen, Elaine S.

doi:10.1006/brln.2000.2436

Cited by 126 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These correlations are very similar to the correlations of .73 and .76 found for the group as a whole in this study and are very similar to the correlation of .73 that Tirre and Peña (1992) found for their version of the sentence span task, in which subjects were also required to make a judgment about a sentence. All of these correlations are much higher than the test-retest reliability of .41, which we reported using span scores, and of .52 that MacDonald et al (2001) reported, using item scores for Daneman and Carpenter's (1980) version of the task, in which subjects simply read a sentence aloud, rather than making a judgment about the sentence (Waters & Caplan, 1996). The present results, in combination with those outlined above, suggest that test-retest reliability for Daneman and Carpenter type sentence span tasks is better when subjects are required to make judgments about the sentences than when they simply read the sentences aloud.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

“…Waters and Caplan (1996) examined test-retest reliability after an interval of approximately 3 months for 44 college students who were tested on Daneman and Carpenter's (1980) reading span test and on the version of the task outlined above, in which the subjects made judgments about the acceptability of the sentences. MacDonald, Almor, Henderson, Kempler, and Andersen (2001) examined test-retest reliability for a version of Daneman and Carpenter's task in which the stimuli were modified to allow for testing on two separate occasions separated by a week. Klein and Fiss (1999) tested college students across three administrations of the operation span test.…”

Section: Psychometric Properties Of Wm Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures

Waters

Caplan

2003

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

223

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Baddeley and Hitch developed the concept of working memory (WM) in a seminal paper in 1974. They argued that most cognitive tasks require the use of a WM system that not only stores small amounts of information for brief periods of time, as the older short-term memory (STM) system had been thought to do, but also simultaneously processes information. They carried out several experiments in which subjects were required to carry out a cognitive task, such as verbal reasoning, comprehension, or free recall, while simultaneously holding onto a memory load. Because the subjects were more affected by a concurrent memory load than by control tasks that simply required rehearsal, Baddeley and Hitch argued that reasoning and comprehension required WM, and not simply STM.Because of the presumed role of WM in many cognitive tasks, there has been considerable interest in the extent to which individual differences in WM capacity may explain individual differences in other cognitive domains. Studies in which the role of WM in some aspect of cognitive performance has been evaluated have been carried out in a wide variety of populations, including children (e.g., Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990), college students (e.g., Waters & Caplan, 1996), elderly individuals (e.g., Craik, Morris, & Gick, 1990;Park et al., 1996;Salthouse, 1990), and various brain-damaged populations (e.g., Caplan & Hildebrandt, 1988;Miyake, Carpenter, & Just, 1994;Tompkins, Bloise, Timko, & Baumgaertner, 1994;Waters & Caplan, 1997). However, the investigation of the role of WM in various cognitive tasks requires that WM be measured accurately. The focus of this article is on the measurement of WM capacity in both young and elderly individuals. Below, we will review the literature on various means that have been used to measure WM capacity and on the psychometric properties of these measures. Measurement of WM CapacityMany tasks have been developed that attempt to measure WM capacity. The common element in these tasks is that, in contrast to simple span tasks in which the material is usually repeated verbatim after some delay, these tasks involve both a processing and a storage component. Numerous WM span tasks have been developed that require the subject to perform an operation on each item or on the list as a whole and then to repeat the list or a particular item back. Examples of these tasks include tasks This work was supported by Grant AG00966 from the National Institute on Aging. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to G. S. Waters, Department of Health Sciences, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02116 (e-mail: gwaters@ bu.edu).The reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures GLORIA S. WATERS Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts and DAVID CAPLAN Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts The psychometric properties of several commonly used verbal working memory measures were assessed. One hundred thirty-nine individuals in five age groups (18-30, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80+ ye...

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

Section: Psychometric Properties Of Wm Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures

Waters

Caplan

2003

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

223

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Há ampla discussão sobre as dificuldades de compreensão de sentenças e de discursos em pacientes com DA. A literatura na área vem demonstrando que embora possam ser similares, os processamentos de sentenças e de discursos não parecem compartilhar dos mesmos recursos cognitivos 21,22 . Além disso, parece que o processamento do discurso está mais marcadamente afetado nestes pacientes, sendo mais relacionado, neste caso, às falhas da memória de trabalho.…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Alterações de linguagem nas fases iniciais da doença de Alzheimer

Ortiz

Bertolucci

2005

Arq. Neuro-Psiquiatr.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A doença de Alzheimer (DA) atinge no mínimo 5% da população de indivíduos com mais de 65 anos. Pacientes com DA apresentam alterações cognitivas, de linguagem e de comportamento que se agravam durante o curso da doença. As alterações de memória, no entanto, são as mais referidas pela família e as mais fortemente evidenciadas na avaliação clínica do paciente desde o início da doença. As alterações de fala e de linguagem, apesar de serem freqüentemente notadas, têm sido melhor estudadas nas duas últimas décadas 1 e, da mesma forma, também têm sido melhor investigadas na prática clínica. O uso da linguagem depende de conhecimentos múltiplos, incluindo sistemas de informação lingüística e sistemas de informação conceptual e perceptual não lingüísticas. Os conhecimentos são expressos através das estruturas fonológicas, sintáticas, semânticas e discursivas.Por se tratar de um processo altamente complexo e elaborado, as alterações de linguagem podem ocorrer em qualquer um dos níveis descritos, e podem comprometer tanto a comunicação oral q u a n t o a comunicação gráfica. Desta forma, a avaliação deve procurar identificar alterações nos aspectos emissivos e/ou compreensivos da linguagem em todas as suas vertentes. A maior parte dos estudos lingüísticos realizados com pacientes com DA, buscou investigar, inicialmente, alterações no eixo lé-xico-semântico, principalmente alterações no acesso l e x i c a l 2 , 3 . A estes estudos iniciais, acrescentaram-se, ALTERAÇÕES DE LINGUAGEM NAS FASES INICIAIS DA DOENÇA DE ALZHEIMER Language impairment in the early stages of Alzheimer´s diseaseABSTRACT -Alzheimer disease (AD) is usually associated with cognitive, language and behavioral impairments, which can get more and more serious as the disease progresses. The aim of this study is to verify language disorders in the early stages of this disease. Twelve patients meeting criteria for problable AD were evaluated by the Boston test, and all of them scored more than 23 points on the Mini-Mental State Examination. Data acquired on this language evaluation were compared with the average of normal population data. All patients showed language disorders. Statistical differences were found in visual confrontating naming and auditory comphrension tasks. The patients performed well in writing and reading tasks. We believe that there might have had an interference in the patient´s linguistic task performance due to their memory impairment. We could find language impairments in the early stages of AD.

show abstract

“…Although two studies have shown less adequate testretest reliability for the reading span task, ranging from .50 over weeks to .40-.65 over months (MacDonald, Almor, Henderson, Kempler, & Andersen, 2001;Waters & Caplan, 1996), the observation that span scores correlate strongly with various other measures provides additional evidence for their reliability. This is because the correlation between two measures is limited by reliability.…”

Section: Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 96%

Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide

Conway¹,

Kane

Bunting³

et al. 2005

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

2,207

2,174

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Working memory (WM) span tasks-and in particular, counting span, operation span, and reading span tasks-are widely used measures of WM capacity. Despite their popularity, however, there has never been a comprehensive analysis of the merits of WM span tasks as measurement tools. Here, we review the genesis of these tasks and discuss how and why they came to be so influential. In so doing, we address the reliability and validity of the tasks, and we consider more technical aspects of the tasks, such as optimal administration and scoring procedures. Finally, we discuss statistical and methodological techniques that have commonly been used in conjunction with WM span tasks, such as latent variable analysis and extreme-groups designs.

show abstract

Assessing Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Alzheimer's Disease

Cited by 126 publications

References 40 publications

The reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures

The reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures

Alterações de linguagem nas fases iniciais da doença de Alzheimer

Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About