Implicit/explicit memory dissociation in Alzheimer's disease: The consequence of inappropriate processing?

Willems, Sylvie; Salmon, Eric; Linden, Martial Van der

doi:10.1037/a0012986

Cited by 20 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…This proposal is consistent with evidence that accuracy can be enhanced by encouraging subjects to adopt lax response criteria, even in patients with global amnesia (Verfaellie et al 2001). Other studies have also documented results of encouraging nonanalytic, guess-like strategies (Whittlesea and Price 2001;Willems et al 2008;Willems and Van der Linden 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

Voss

Paller²

2010

Learn. Mem.

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Various factors could conceivably promote the accuracy of guesses during a recognition test. Two that we identified in previous studies are forced-choice testing format and high perceptual similarity between the repeat target and novel foil. In restricted circumstances, the relative perceptual fluency of the target can be compared with that of the foil and used as a reliable cue to guide accurate responses that occur without explicit retrieval-a phenomenon we referred to as "implicit recognition." In this issue, Jeneson and colleagues report a failure to replicate accurate guesses and also a tendency on the part of subjects to hazard guesses infrequently, even though testing circumstances were very similar to those that we used. To resolve this discrepancy, we developed a simple manipulation to encourage either guessing or confident responding. Encouraging guessing increased both the prevalence of guesses and the accuracy of guesses in a recognition test, relative to when confident responding was encouraged. When guessing was encouraged, guesses were highly accurate (as in our previous demonstrations of implicit recognition), whereas when confident responding was encouraged, guesses were at chance levels (as in Jeneson and colleagues' data). In light of a substantial literature showing high accuracy despite low confidence in certain circumstances, we infer that both the prevalence and accuracy of guessing can be influenced by whether subjects adopt guessing-friendly strategies. Our findings thus help to further characterize conditions likely to promote implicit recognition based on perceptual fluency.In several prior experiments, we reported findings indicative of recognition without awareness Voss and Paller 2009). The experiments involved recognition tests for colorful and complex geometric shapes (kaleidoscope images). Subjects attempted to discriminate repeat stimuli (targets) from novel stimuli (foils). In some of our experiments, subjects made recognition responses and also rated the quality of their recognition experience or their confidence in their decision. For example, recognition often occurred with awareness of memory retrieval and with some level of confidence. On the other hand, correct recognition of a target sometimes occurred with no discernable awareness of memory retrieval or confidence; essentially, subjects felt that their response was merely a guess-and yet they were correct.Of course, the reason that a guess might be correct in a recognition test might have nothing at all to do with the subject having retrieved relevant information; the response might be merely a "lucky guess." Our results, however, provided evidence that processes of implicit memory were operative in producing at least a subset of the correct guesses. In recognition tests using a forced-choice format, targets and foils shared a high degree of perceptual similarity and were displayed side-by-side, and we found that, for guess responses, the repeat stimulus was correctly selected remarkably often. With no stored informatio...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

Voss

Paller²

2010

Learn. Mem.

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“…Such an analytic strategy might block the experience of global processing fluency and thus the feeling of familiarity [19]. Importantly, we showed that instructions that modify how difficult the task is perceived by AD patients and induce a holistic processing of stimuli improved strikingly the patients' recognition performance by promoting the reliance on fluency cues [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Moreover, similarly to healthy people, mild AD patients are also able to disregard fluency and do not experience familiarity when they feel that processing facilitation is not related to prior study [30], suggesting that metacognitive processes may be sufficiently preserved in mild AD patients to ensure control over the conversion from fluency to familiarity (for similar evidence, see [33]). Finally, the nature of the retrieval strategy used by AD patients may modulate whether or not they use available fluency cues [34]. Indeed, patients tend not to base their recognition decisions on fluency when they feel that the task constitutes a hard challenge, presumably because they cope with task difficulty by adopting an analytic processing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Salience of Fluency Improves Recognition Memory Performance in Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Bastin

Willems

Genon

et al. 2013

JAD

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Recognition memory can rely on recollection (recall of the details from the encoding episode) and familiarity (feeling that some information is old without any recollection). In Alzheimer's disease (AD), whereas there is a clear deficit of recollection, the evidence regarding familiarity is mixed, with some studies showing preserved familiarity and others reporting impairment. The current study examined whether recognition memory performance can be improved in AD when the use of familiarity is facilitated by the salience of processing fluency due to an earlier encounter with the information. Fifteen AD patients and 16 healthy controls performed a verbal recognition memory task where the salience of fluency was manipulated by means of letters overlap. Studied and unstudied words were constituted of either two separate sets of letters (no-overlap condition, high fluency salience) or the same set of letters (overlap condition, low fluency salience). The results showed that, although performance was globally poorer in AD patients than in the controls, both groups performed significantly better in the no-overlap condition than in the overlap condition. This suggests that AD patients benefited as much as the controls from the salience of fluency.

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“…Fluency plays an essential role in familiarity-based recognition [64,65] and likely contributes to the phenomenological experience of familiarity [66-68]. Indeed, previous work in patients with aMCI and mild AD suggest that perceptual fluency remains intact and can contribute to increased recognition performance in these patients [25,69-71]. In this type of work, perceptual fluency refers to ease at which patients process only the physical characteristic of visual stimuli.…”

Section: The Picture Superiority Effect In Amnestic Mild Cognitive Immentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, reminder systems can use pictures rather than word lists for reminders and medication management. Additionally, recent work has shown that patients with AD demonstrate relatively intact discrimination when forced to rely on global characteristics of visual objects rather than specific perceptual details [71]. Perhaps working with patients to focus on the gist or conceptual information rather than specific details can help with new learning.…”

Section: Conclusion and Clinical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Pictures and Words To Understand Recognition Memory Deterioration in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Ally

2012

Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep

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Difficulty recognizing previously encountered stimuli is one of the earliest signs of incipient Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Work over the last 10 years has focused on how patients with AD and those in the prodromal stage of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) make recognition decisions for visual and verbal stimuli. Interestingly, both groups of patients demonstrate markedly better memory for pictures over words, to a degree that is significantly greater in magnitude than their healthy older counterparts. Understanding this phenomenon not only helps to conceptualize how memory breaks down in AD, but also potentially provides the basis for future interventions. The current review will critically examine recent recognition memory work using pictures and words in the context of the dual-process theory of recognition and current hypotheses of cognitive breakdown in the course of very early AD.

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Implicit/explicit memory dissociation in Alzheimer's disease: The consequence of inappropriate processing?

Cited by 20 publications

References 70 publications

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

Enhancing the Salience of Fluency Improves Recognition Memory Performance in Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Using Pictures and Words To Understand Recognition Memory Deterioration in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

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