Recognition Memory For Words Research Articles

学习时的情绪图片背景对词语再认记忆的影响：SOA和背景呈现时间的调节作用

本研究采用学习—再认范式，考察编码阶段与任务无关的图片背景的情绪唤醒程度、呈现时长、以及背景与目标词语呈现的时间间隔等对词语再认记忆的影响，探讨情绪背景对词语记忆的损害作用发生的条件。在学习阶段，单词叠加呈现在背景图片中央，只要求被试记忆单词。测验阶段，词语单独呈现，要求被试做新旧判断。结果发现，相对于中性背景，情绪背景损害了词语的再认。且情绪背景对词语再认的损害效应受到背景呈现时间的影响。 The present study attempted to investigate the influences of emotional arousal, stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of context and target, context duration of task-irrelevant picture and context on recognition memory of words using study-test paradigm. During study, words were superimposed centrally onto emotional contexts, and subjects were asked to just remember the words. During test, both studied and new words were presented without the emotional contexts and subjects had to make “old/new” judgments for those words. We found that, compared with the neutral context, the emotional context impaired recognition of words. And the impairing effect of the emotional contexts was influenced by the context duration.

The relationship between recognition memory for emotion-laden words and white matter microstructure in normal older individuals.

Functional neuroimaging studies have shown age-related differences in brain activation and connectivity patterns for emotional memory. Previous studies with middle-aged and older adults have reported associations between episodic memory and white matter (WM) microstructure obtained from diffusion tensor imaging, but such studies on emotional memory remain few. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore associations between WM microstructure as measured by fractional anisotropy (FA) and recognition memory for intentionally encoded positive, negative, and emotionally neutral words using tract-based spatial statistics applied to diffusion tensor imaging images in an elderly sample (44 cognitively intact adults aged 50-79 years). The use of tract-based spatial statistics enables the identification of WM tracts important to emotional memory without a priori assumptions required for region-of-interest approaches that have been used in previous work. The behavioral analyses showed a positivity bias, that is, a preference for positive words, in recognition memory. No statistically significant associations emerged between FA and memory for negative or neutral words. Controlling for age and memory performance for negative and neutral words, recognition memory for positive words was negatively associated with FA in several projection, association, and commissural tracts in the left hemisphere. This likely reflects the complex interplay between the mnemonic positivity bias, structural WM integrity, and functional brain compensatory mechanisms in older age. Also, the unexpected directionality of the results indicates that the WM microstructural correlates of emotional memory show unique characteristics in normal older individuals.

Development of the Word Auditory Recognition and Recall Measure: A Working Memory Test for Use in Rehabilitative Audiology.

The purpose of this study was to develop the Word Auditory Recognition and Recall Measure (WARRM) and to conduct the inaugural evaluation of the performance of younger adults with normal hearing, older adults with normal to near-normal hearing, and older adults with pure-tone hearing loss on the WARRM. The WARRM is a new test designed for concurrently assessing word recognition and auditory working memory performance in adults who may have pure-tone hearing loss. The test consists of 100 monosyllabic words based on widely used speech-recognition test materials. The 100 words are presented in recall set sizes of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 items, with 5 trials in each set size. The WARRM yields a word-recognition score and a recall score. The WARRM was administered to all participants in three listener groups under two processing conditions in a mixed model (between-subjects, repeated measures) design. The between-subjects factor was group, with 48 younger listeners with normal audiometric thresholds (younger listeners with normal hearing [YNH]), 48 older listeners with normal thresholds through 3000 Hz (older listeners with normal hearing [ONH]), and 48 older listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (older listeners with hearing loss [OHL]). The within-subjects factor was WARRM processing condition (no additional task or with an alphabet judgment task). The associations between results on the WARRM test and results on a battery of other auditory and memory measures were examined. Word-recognition performance on the WARRM was not affected by processing condition or set size and was near ceiling for the YNH and ONH listeners (99 and 98%, respectively) with both groups performing significantly better than the OHL listeners (83%). The recall results were significantly better for the YNH, ONH, and OHL groups with no processing (93, 84, and 75%, respectively) than with the alphabet processing (86, 77, and 70%). In both processing conditions, recall was best for YNH, followed by ONH, and worst for OHL listeners. WARRM recall scores were significantly correlated with other memory measures. In addition, WARRM recall scores were correlated with results on the Words-In-Noise (WIN) test for the OHL listeners in the no processing condition and for ONH listeners in the alphabet processing condition. Differences in the WIN and recall scores of these groups are consistent with the interpretation that the OHL listeners found listening to be sufficiently demanding to affect recall even in the no processing condition, whereas the ONH group listeners did not find it so demanding until the additional alphabet processing task was added. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating an auditory memory test into a word-recognition test to obtain measures of both word recognition and working memory simultaneously. The correlation of WARRM recall with scores from other memory measures is evidence of construct validity. The observation of correlations between the WIN thresholds with each of the older groups and recall scores in certain processing conditions suggests that recall depends on listeners' word-recognition abilities in noise in combination with the processing demands of the task. The recall score provides additional information beyond the pure-tone audiogram and word-recognition scores that may help rehabilitative audiologists assess the listening abilities of patients with hearing loss.

The power of timing: Adding a time-to-completion cutoff to the Word Choice Test and Recognition Memory Test improves classification accuracy

ABSTRACTIntroduction: The Recognition Memory Test (RMT) and Word Choice Test (WCT) are structurally similar, but psychometrically different. Previous research demonstrated that adding a time-to-completion cutoff improved the classification accuracy of the RMT. However, the contribution of WCT time-cutoffs to improve the detection of invalid responding has not been investigated. The present study was designed to evaluate the classification accuracy of time-to-completion on the WCT compared to the accuracy score and the RMT. Method: Both tests were administered to 202 adults (Mage = 45.3 years, SD = 16.8; 54.5% female) clinically referred for neuropsychological assessment in counterbalanced order as part of a larger battery of cognitive tests. Results: Participants obtained lower and more variable scores on the RMT (M = 44.1, SD = 7.6) than on the WCT (M = 46.9, SD = 5.7). Similarly, they took longer to complete the recognition trial on the RMT (M = 157.2 s,SD = 71.8) than the WCT (M = 137.2 s, SD = 75.7). The optimal cutoff on the RMT (≤43) produced .60 sensitivity at .87 specificity. The optimal cutoff on the WCT (≤47) produced .57 sensitivity at .87 specificity. Time-cutoffs produced comparable classification accuracies for both RMT (≥192 s; .48 sensitivity at .88 specificity) and WCT (≥171 s; .49 sensitivity at .91 specificity). They also identified an additional 6–10% of the invalid profiles missed by accuracy score cutoffs, while maintaining good specificity (.93–.95). Functional equivalence was reached at accuracy scores ≤43 (RMT) and ≤47 (WCT) or time-to-completion ≥192 s (RMT) and ≥171 s (WCT). Conclusions: Time-to-completion cutoffs are valuable additions to both tests. They can function as independent validity indicators or enhance the sensitivity of accuracy scores without requiring additional measures or extending standard administration time.

It’s all in the delivery: Effects of context valence, arousal, and concreteness on visual word processing

Prior research has examined how distributional properties of contexts (number of unique contexts or their informativeness) influence the effort of word recognition. These properties do not directly interrogate the semantic properties of contexts. We evaluated the influence of average concreteness, valence (positivity) and arousal of the contexts in which a word occurs on response times in the lexical decision task, age of acquisition of the word, and word recognition memory performance. Using large corpora and norming mega-studies we quantified semantics of contexts for thousands of words and demonstrated that contextual factors were predictive of lexical representation and processing above and beyond the influence shown by concreteness, valence and arousal of the word itself. Our findings indicate that lexical representations are influenced not only by how diverse the word’s contexts are, but also by the embodied experiences they elicit.

Electrophysiological correlates of word recognition memory process in patients with ischemic left ventricular dysfunction.

The relationship between left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and cognitive performance in patients with coronary artery disease without overt heart failure is still under debate. In this study we combine behavioral measures and event-related potentials (ERPs) to verify whether electrophysiological correlates of recognition memory (old/new effect) are modulated differently as a function of LVEF. Twenty-three male patients (12 without [LVEF>55%] and 11 with [LVEF<40%] left ventricular dysfunction), and a Mini Mental State Examination score >25 were enrolled. ERPs were recorded while participants performed an old/new visual word recognition task. A late positive ERP component between 350 and 550ms was differentially modulated in the two groups: a clear old/new effect (enhanced mean amplitude for old respect to new items) was observed in patients without LVEF dysfunction; whereas patients with overt LVEF dysfunction did not show such effect. In contrast, no significant differences emerged for behavioral performance and neuropsychological evaluations. These data suggest that ERPs may reveal functional brain abnormalities that are not observed at behavioral level. Detecting sub-clinical measures of cognitive decline may contribute to set appropriate treatments and to monitor asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients with LVEF dysfunction.

DATA-DRIVEN DISEASE PROGRESSION MODELLING USING NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS: POSTERIOR CORTICAL ATROPHY VS ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Sophisticated computational techniques are used routinely to analyze neuroimaging data about changes in the shape of the brain. By contrast there have been few attempts to use comparable techniques to understand complex cognitive datasets. The C-PLACID project aims to improve tools and techniques used to assess the cognitive abilities of people at risk with dementia. Here we report the adaptation and application of Event-Based Models (EBMs) to describe the patterns of cognitive decline in Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) and typical Alzheimer’s Disease (tAD). A cohort of PCA (n=108), tAD (n=65) and control (n=23) subjects underwent a battery of 15 cognitive tests at multiple timepoints. Baseline data from these individuals were used to build and validate two EBMs, one for PCA, and another for tAD. These models provide sequences ordering the tests by how early they show abnormality, separately in each condition. The fitted EBMs were also used to stage patients both at their baseline visits and subsequent follow up visits. The fitted EBMs highlight distinct orders in which PCA and tAD participants fail cognitive tests during disease progression (Figures 1&2). Tests sensitive to visuospatial dysfunction (e.g. A cancellation time) decline earlier in PCA (event 2) than tAD (event 10), whilst tests sensitive to episodic memory impairment (e.g. recognition memory for words) decline earlier in tAD (event 3) than PCA (event 9). The EBMs highlighted much earlier PCA decline on backwards than forwards digit span (events 1vs11), whilst in tAD these events were contemporaneous (events 5vs6). Likely because repeating digits in reverse order additionally requires spatial and visual imagery skills impaired in PCA. Longitudinal analyses based on follow up visits provide validation of the EBM sequences. In the PCA model >90% of patients follow up visits were assigned a stage (Figures 3&4) greater than or equal to a previous visit; in the AD model this figure was 86%. Data driven approaches like EBMs provide insights into both when and why cognition declines in different dementia populations. This work highlights the usefulness of EBM stages as multi-dimensional markers of severity, and compare and contrast mixed modality EBMs as models of disease progression. Positional variance diagrams showing uncertainty of event sequences for the maximum likelihood sequence (most likely given the data) of AD. Tests on the y-axis are ordered by maximum likelihood sequence. Values are normalised by row to give a value between 0 (white) and 1 (dark blue), showing variance in individual events. Positional variance diagrams showing uncertainty of event sequences for the maximum likelihood sequence (most likely given the data) of PCA. Tests on the y-axis are ordered by maximum likelihood sequence. Values are normalised by row to give a value between 0 (white) and 1 (dark blue), showing variance in individual events. Proportion of control (blue) and tAD (red) subjects baseline measurements staged at disease stages generated using the fitted tAD EBM (Figure 1). Stage zero corresponds to a high probability of no cognitive test scores being abnormal. Stage i corresponds to high probabilities of results for tests 1 to i-1 being abonormal in the fitted tAD EBM (Figure 1) and tests i to 12 being normal. Proportion of control (blue) and PCA (red) subjects baseline measurements staged at disease stages generated using the fitted PCA EBM (Figure 2). Stage zero corresponds to a high probability of no cognitive test scores being abnormal. Stage i corresponds to high probabilities of results for tests 1 to i-1 being abonormal in the fitted PCA EBM (Figure 2) and tests i to 12 being normal.

Hemispheric processing of memory is affected by sleep

Sleep is known to affect learning and memory, but the extent to which it influences behavioural processing in the left and right hemispheres of the brain is as yet unknown. We tested two hypotheses about lateralised effects of sleep on recognition memory for words: whether sleep reactivated recent experiences of words promoting access to the long-term store in the left hemisphere (LH), and whether sleep enhanced spreading activation differentially in semantic networks in the hemispheres. In Experiment 1, participants viewed lists of semantically related words, then slept or stayed awake for 12h before being tested on seen, unseen but related, or unrelated words presented to the left or the right hemisphere. Sleep was found to promote word recognition in the LH, and to spread activation equally within semantic networks in both hemispheres. Experiment 2 ensured that the results were not due to time of day effects influencing cognitive performance.

Dietary Strawberry Improves Cognition in Older adults: A Randomized, Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trial

Older adults experience a variety of functional changes that decrease their quality of life with age‐related cognitive decline and reduced mobility being of particular concern. Pre‐clinical research indicates that berry fruit offer a promising dietary approach to preserving nervous system function, in part due to the antioxidant and anti‐inflammatory properties of their polyphenolic compounds. Based on the improvements in mobility and cognition observed among strawberry‐supplemented aged rats, we hypothesized that dietary supplementation with strawberry would also benefit older adults. The present study investigated the effects of strawberry supplementation (24g/day, ≈2 cups/day fresh strawberry) or placebo powder on healthy older men and women (60–75 years old). Motor and cognitive ability were assessed at days 0, 45, and 90 of supplementation. Improvements in hippocampally‐mediated word recognition and spatial memory were observed among participants that consumed strawberry, relative to placebo; however, no effects on mobility were observed. These findings suggest that the inclusion of strawberry in the diet may aid in preserving aspects of cognitive function during aging.Support or Funding InformationUSDA Intramural, California Strawberry Commission

The modulating role of ADRA2B in emotional working memory: Attending the negative but remembering the positive

Previous studies found that the ADRA2B gene modulates early perception and attention. Here, we aimed to examine whether ADRA2B polymorphisms also influence emotional working memory and the willingness to implement behaviors (switching affective intonation) in order to avoid negative information, both considered indexes of cognitive–affective flexibility. We examined genotype data collected from 212 healthy females, 91 ADRA2B carriers and 121 non-carriers, and found that carriers showed a positivity bias in working memory. That is, carriers remembered a higher number of positive words compared to negative and neutral words. In addition, although carriers were more unwilling to switch intonation in order to avoid negative information, they showed better recognition memory for words read with a positive intonation. These findings suggest that deletion variants of ADRA2B may show greater levels of cognitive–affective flexibility compared to non-carriers.

The impact of music on learning and consolidation of novel words

ABSTRACTMusic can be a powerful mnemonic device, as shown by a body of literature demonstrating that listening to text sung to a familiar melody results in better memory for the words compared to conditions where they are spoken. Furthermore, patients with a range of memory impairments appear to be able to form new declarative memories when they are encoded in the form of lyrics in a song, while unable to remember similar materials after hearing them in the spoken modality. Whether music facilitates the acquisition of completely new information, such as new vocabulary, remains unknown. Here we report three experiments in which adult participants learned novel words in the spoken or sung modality. While we found no benefit of musical presentation on free recall or recognition memory of novel words, novel words learned in the sung modality were more strongly integrated in the mental lexicon compared to words learned in the spoken modality. This advantage for the sung words was only present when the training melody was familiar. The impact of musical presentation on learning therefore appears to extend beyond episodic memory and can be reflected in the emergence and properties of new lexical representations.

The influences of reappraisal and suppression instructions on memory for neutral words in negative background.

Previous studies have investigated the influences of emotion regulation on memory for emotional stimuli. However, whether and how emotion regulation impacts recognition memory for neutral items in negative background is still unclear. Thus, the present study used event-related potentials and the study-recognition memory task to examine the effects of the two commonly used emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, on recognition memory of neutral words centrally presented on negative pictures. The behavior results showed that, compared with suppression, the reappraisal strategy enhanced the neutral words memory. Moreover, the event-related potential data demonstrated larger FN400 old/new effect indexing familiarity and late positive component old/new effect presenting episodic information recollection for the reappraisal condition relative to view and suppression conditions. These might be due to significant elaboration encouraged by this strategy.

A mega recognition memory study of 2897 disyllabic words.

Following the studies by Cortese, Khanna, and Hacker (2010) on recognition memory for monosyllabic words, recognition memory estimates (e.g., hits, false alarms, hits minus false alarms) for 3000 disyllabic words were obtained from 120 subjects and 2897 of these words were analysed via multiple regression. Participants studied 30 lists of 50 words and were tested on 30 lists of 100 words. Of the subjects, 60 received a constant study time of 2000 ms per item and 60 studied items at their own pace. Specific predictor variables included log word frequency, word length, imageability, age of acquisition, orthographic similarity, and phonological similarity. The results were similar to those of Cortese et al. (2010). Specifically, in the analysis of hits minus false alarms, the entire set of predictor variables accounted for 34.9% of the variance. All predictor variables except phonological similarity were related to performance, with imageability, length, orthographic similarity and frequency all being strong predictors. These results are mostly compatible with the predictions made by single- and dual-process theories. However, across items hit rates were not correlated with false alarms. Given that most variables produced the standard mirror pattern, this latter outcome poses a major challenge for recognition memory theories.

Honking is just noise (or just about): The effect of energetic masking on recognition memory for spoken words

Previous research indicates that listeners encode both linguistic and indexical specifications of the speech signal in memory. Recent evidence suggests that non-linguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words are also incorporated in our lexical memory. We argue that this “sound-specificity effect” might not be due so much to a word-sound association as to the different acoustic glimpses of the words that the associated sounds create. In several recognition-memory experiments, we paired spoken words with one of two car honk sounds and varied the level of energetic masking from exposure to test. We did not observe a drop in recognition accuracy for previously heard words when the paired sound changed as long as energetic masking was controlled. However, when we manipulated the temporal overlap between words and honking to create an energetic masking contrast, accuracy dropped. The finding suggests that listeners encode irrelevant non-speech information in memory, but only in certain contexts. Calling for an expansion of the mental lexicon to include non-speech auditory information might be premature. Current work is investigating the effect in non-native listeners of English, and whether maskers that are more integral to the words and hence more difficult to segregate lead to a more robust effect.

Recognition memory of neutral words can be impaired by task-irrelevant emotional encoding contexts: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.

Previous studies on the effects of emotional context on memory for centrally presented neutral items have obtained inconsistent results. And in most of those studies subjects were asked to either make a connection between the item and the context at study or retrieve both the item and the context. When no response for the contexts is required, how emotional contexts influence memory for neutral items is still unclear. Thus, the present study attempted to investigate the influences of four types of emotional picture contexts on recognition memory of neutral words using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements. During study, words were superimposed centrally onto emotional contexts, and subjects were asked to just remember the words. During test, both studied and new words were presented without the emotional contexts and subjects had to make “old/new” judgments for those words. The results revealed that, compared with the neutral context, the negative contexts and positive high-arousing context impaired recognition of words. ERP results at encoding demonstrated that, compared with items presented in the neutral context, items in the positive and negative high-arousing contexts elicited more positive ERPs, which probably reflects an automatic process of attention capturing of high-arousing context as well as a conscious and effortful process of overcoming the interference of high-arousing context. During retrieval, significant FN400 old/new effects occurred in conditions of the negative low-arousing, positive, and neutral contexts but not in the negative high-arousing condition. Significant LPC old/new effects occurred in all conditions of context. However, the LPC old/new effect in the negative high-arousing condition was smaller than that in the positive high-arousing and low-arousing conditions. These results suggest that emotional context might influence both the familiarity and recollection processes.

Supplemental Material for Aging Effects in Item and Associative Recognition Memory for Pictures and Words

Supplemental Material for Aging Effects in Item and Associative Recognition Memory for Pictures and Words

Aging effects in item and associative recognition memory for pictures and words.

Item and associative recognition for pictures and words with college-age young adults and 60-75-year-old adults were examined in the experiment reported in this article. The diffusion model (Ratcliff & McKoon, 2008) was used to extract estimates of components of processing from the empirical values of accuracy and correct and error response time distributions. The model fit the empirical data well for both picture and word stimuli. Results showed that boundary separation was larger and nondecision time was longer for older relative to young adults. Drift rates were not lower for older adults for item recognition but they were for associative recognition, indicating that the richer structure of pictures did not provide an enhanced ability to form associations for the older adults. There were also significant correlations among the components of processing across the tasks of the experiment, suggesting common factors, but participants' accuracy and response times did not significantly correlate within and across the tasks.

32. Event-related potential correlates of word recognition memory in patients with coronary artery disease

The relationship between left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and cognitive performance in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) without overt heart failure is still under debate. In the present study we combine behavioural measures and event-related potentials (ERPs) to verify whether electrophysiological correlates of recognition memory (Old/New effect) is modulated differently as a function of LVEF. Twenty-five male patients with CAD (13 without [LVEF > 55%] and 12 with [LVEF < 40%] left ventricular dysfunction), and a Mini Mental State Examination score > 25 were enrolled. ERPs were recorded while participants performed a visual word recognition task consisting of a test phase in which they were asked to judge whether visual stimuli were previously presented in a learning phase (‘old’) or not (‘new’). ERPs responses from the test phase were analyzed. A late positive ERP component between 300 and 500 ms was differentially modulated in the two groups: a clear old/new effect (enhanced mean amplitude for old respect to new items) was observed in patients without LVEF dysfunction; whereas patients with overt LVEF dysfunction did not show such old/new effect. These data suggest that ERPs may reveal possible functional brain abnormalities that might be not observed at behavioural levels.

Motivational mechanisms (BAS) and prefrontal cortical activation contribute to recognition memory for emotional words. rTMS effect on performance and EEG (alpha band) measures

The present research addressed the question of where memories for emotional words could be represented in the brain. A second main question was related to the effect of personality traits, in terms of the Behavior Activation System (BAS), in emotional word recognition. We tested the role of the left DLPFC (LDLPFC) by performing a memory task in which old (previously encoded targets) and new (previously not encoded distractors) positive or negative emotional words had to be recognized. High-BAS and low-BAS subjects were compared when a repetitive TMS (rTMS) was applied on the LDLPFC. We found significant differences between high-BAS vs. low-BAS subjects, with better performance for high-BAS in response to positive words. In parallel, an increased left cortical activity (alpha desynchronization) was observed for high-BAS in the case of positive words. Thus, we can conclude that the left approach-related hemisphere, underlying BAS, may support faster recognition of positive words.

When recognition memory is independent of hippocampal function.

Hippocampal damage has been thought to result in broad memory impairment. Recent studies in humans, however, have raised the possibility that recognition memory for faces might be spared. In five experiments we investigated face recognition in patients with hippocampal lesions (H) or large medial temporal lobe (MTL) lesions, including patients where neurohistological information was available. Recognition of novel faces was unequivocally intact in H patients but only at a short retention interval. Recognition memory for words, buildings, inverted faces, and famous faces was impaired. For MTL patients, recognition memory was impaired for all materials and across all retention intervals. These results indicate that structures other than the hippocampus, perhaps the perirhinal cortex, can support face recognition memory in H patients under some conditions. The fact that the faces were novel when recognition memory was intact does not fully account for our findings. We propose that the role of the hippocampus in recognition memory is related to how recognition decisions are accomplished. In typical recognition tasks, participants proceed by forming an association between a study item and the study list, and the recognition decision is later made based on whether participants believe the item was on the study list. We suggest that face recognition is an exception to this principle and that, at short retention intervals, participants can make their recognition decisions without making explicit reference to the study list. Important features of faces that might make face recognition exceptional are that they are processed holistically and are difficult to verbally label.