Recall Benefit Research Articles

Encoding specificity, depth of processing, and cued recall in Alzheimer's disease

Unlike normal aging, Alzheimer's disease (SDAT) subjects typically show no benefit in free recall from semantic depth of processing cues at acquisition, but their recall is enhanced by semantic cues at both acquisition and retrieval. However, this apparent encoding-specificity effect might result from cued recall alone. SDAT and control subjects studied pictures in a design comparing depth of processing, cued recall, and encoding specificity. Cued recall alone was ineffective for SDAT subjects but, consistent with other studies, the encoding specificity condition did enhance recall. Both control and SDAT subjects also showed a levels of processing effect in free recall, modified by recency of presentation. Conclusions were: (a) though impaired in the capacity spontaneously to do so, SDAT subjects can be assisted to exploit semantic aspects of material in memory; (b) for optimal remembering in SDAT, substantial cued support should be provided at both ends of the processing continuum.

Practical Manual of Genetics

Memory consolidation involves the reactivation of memory traces during sleep. If many memories are reactivated each night, how much do they interfere with one another? To explore this question, we examined whether reactivating multiple memories incurs a cost to sleep-related benefits by contrasting reactivation of multiple memories versus single memories during sleep. First, participants learned the on-screen location of different images. Each image was part of a semantically interconnected group (e.g., images of different cats). Groups were comprised of either one, two, or six images. During sleep, group-related sounds (e.g., "meow") were unobtrusively presented to reactivate memories for half of the groups. The benefit in location recall for cued versus non-cued items was independent of the number of items in the group, suggesting that reactivation occurs in a simultaneous, promiscuous manner. Intriguingly, sleep spindles and delta-theta power modulations were sensitive to group size and reflected the extent of previous learning. Our results demonstrate that multiple memories may be consolidated in parallel without compromising each memory9s sleep-related benefit, suggesting that the brain9s capacity for reactivation is not strictly limited by separate resources needed for individual memories. These findings highlight alternative models for parallel consolidation that should be considered in future studies.

Imaginal processes during the attempt to recall names

Definitions of 20 distinctive but uncommon objects were read to 51 subjects. For each definition the subject was to attempt to recall the name of the object defined and to indicate whether the name was recalled before an image was remembered or vice versa. They were also to draw a picture of the defined object even if they were unable to remember its appearance. Three judges independently rated the degree to which the drawings resembled the target object. Drawings made when the visual appearance was reputed to be recalled before the name were significantly better than the drawings made without benefit of recall of the name or appearance and were indistinguishable from drawings made when the name was remembered immediately. Apparently, recall of visual information can precede verbal recall.