Memory for Emotional Pictures in Patients with Alzheimer's Dementia: Comparing Picture-Location Binding and Subsequent Recognition

Marloes J Huijbers,Roy P C Kessels,Marcel G M Olde Rikkert,Heiko C Bergmann

doi:10.4061/2011/409364

Abstract

Emotional content typically facilitates subsequent memory, known as the emotional enhancement effect. We investigated whether emotional content facilitates spatial and item memory in patients with Alzheimer's dementia (AD). Twenty-three AD patients, twenty-three healthy elderly, and twenty-three young adults performed a picture relocation task and a delayed recognition task with positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. AD patients showed a benefit in immediate spatial memory for positive pictures, while healthy young and older participants did not benefit from emotional content. No emotional enhancement effects on delayed item recognition were seen. We conclude that AD patients may have a memory bias for positive information in spatial memory. Discrepancies between our findings and earlier studies are discussed.

Highlights

There is abundant evidence that emotional events can be preserved in memory, even in patients with memory deficits
The emotional enhancement effect was investigated using two different memory paradigms: a picture relocation task designed as a measure for visuospatial shortterm memory and an old/new delayed recognition task
The mean relocation distance in the picture relocation task was larger in the Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) group compared with the healthy older group

Summary

Introduction

There is abundant evidence that emotional events can be preserved in memory, even in patients with memory deficits. Amnesic patients could remember details of the terrorist attack of 9/11, 2001, while already suffering from profound anterograde amnesia at the time of the event [1] This effect is generally referred to as the “emotional enhancement effect” [2]. Mather and colleagues [13] have demonstrated that short-term memory for picture locations decreased as the emotional arousal of the pictures increased, while long-term recall was better for the emotional items, compared with the neutral ones. Their findings support the idea of a trade-off between (impairment of) short-term memory and (enhancement of) long-term memory

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion