Abstract
Vocal expression of emotions (EE) in retrieval of events from autobiographical memory was investigated in patients in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Twenty-one AD patients and 19 controls were interviewed, and EE of the reported memories was rated by 8 independent evaluators. The AD group had lower EE of both recent and remote memory than controls, although EE in remote memories was better preserved in both groups. We observed positive correlations between EE and indicators of cognitive competence in AD patients. AD Patients are impaired in the ability to express emotions already at early stages of the disease, and EE seems to deteriorate along with the progression of cognitive impairment.
Highlights
Expression and recognition of emotions are essential for social communication
It is well established that emotions enhance episodic and autobiographical memory (Tulving, 1987); this functional relationship between memory and emotions is supported by observations indicating that memories for events can be intensified by strong emotional valence (Bower, 1992), and the recall is commonly better for emotionally colored autobiographical events (Holmes, 1970; Brewer, 1988; Wang, 2008; Rasmussen and Berntsen, 2009)
A significantly higher proportion of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients’ memories was rated as 0–1 whereas expression of emotions (EE) of controls were more likely to be rated as 1–2 in all four categories of memories (χ2 = 34.09, p < 0.0001 with effect size r = 0.65 for yesterday memories; χ2 = 28.13, p < 0.0001, effect size r = 0.43 for week memories; χ2 = 53.06, p < 0.0001, r = 0.54 for month memories; χ2 = 27.82, p < 0.0001, r = 0.62 for remote memories) www.frontiersin.org
Summary
Expression and recognition of emotions are essential for social communication. It is well established that emotions enhance episodic and autobiographical memory (Tulving, 1987); this functional relationship between memory and emotions is supported by observations indicating that memories for events can be intensified by strong emotional valence (Bower, 1992), and the recall is commonly better for emotionally colored autobiographical events (Holmes, 1970; Brewer, 1988; Wang, 2008; Rasmussen and Berntsen, 2009). Autobiographical memory is the encoding and retrieval of sets of information, and remembering one’s own past event in its integrative detail grasping particular objects, emotions or feelings, thoughts, and senses related to that event. The difficulty in encoding and/or retrieval of new information is claimed to be one of the earliest symptoms in patients with AD (Murphy et al, 2008; Leyhe et al, 2009; Irish et al, 2011a; Bastin et al, 2012). It is known that remote memories in AD are better preserved than the recent ones (Sartori et al, 2004; Leyhe et al, 2009). The recent study of Irish et al (2011a) reported the disruption of emotional re-experiencing in retrieval of recent autobiographical memories in AD patients
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