Reduced Working Memory Capacity Research Articles

Diminished activation of excitatory neurons in the prelimbic cortex leads to impaired working memory capacity in mice

BackgroundWorking memory capacity impairment is an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Clarifying how working memory capacity is affected will help us better understand the pathological mechanism of Alzheimer's disease. We used the olfactory working memory capacity paradigm to evaluate memory capacity in 3-month-old 5XFAD (an animal model of Alzheimer's disease) mice. Immunofluorescence staining of the prefrontal cortex was performed to detect the number of FOS-positive neurons, calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-positive neurons, and glutamate decarboxylase-positive neurons in the prelimbic cortex and infralimbic cortex. A chemogenetic method was then used to modulate the inhibition and activation of excitatory neurons in the prelimbic cortex of wild-type and 5XFAD mice and to measure the memory capacity of mice.ResultsWorking memory capacity was significantly diminished in 5XFAD mice compared to littermate wild-type mice. Neuronal activation of the prelimbic cortex, but not the infralimbic cortex, was attenuated in 5XFAD mice performing the olfactory working memory capacity task. Subsequently, the FOS-positive neurons were co-localized with both calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-positive neurons and glutamate decarboxylase-positive neurons. The results showed that the activation of excitatory neurons in the prelimbic cortex was correlated with working memory capacity in mice. Our results further demonstrate that the chemogenetic inhibition of prelimbic cortex excitatory neurons resulted in reduced working memory capacity in wild-type mice, while the chemogenetic activation of prelimbic cortex excitatory neurons improved the working memory capacity of 5XFAD mice.ConclusionThe diminished activation of prelimbic cortex excitatory neurons in 5XFAD mice during task performance is associated with reduced working memory capacity, and activation modulation of excitatory neurons by chemogenetic methods can improve memory capacity impairment in 5XFAD mice. These findings may provide a new direction for exploring Alzheimer's disease therapeutic approaches.

Aberrant Brain Dynamics in Schizophrenia During Working Memory Task: Evidence From a Replication Functional MRI Study.

The integration of information that typifies working memory (WM) operation requires a flexible, dynamic functional relationship among brain regions. In schizophrenia, though WM capacity is prominently impaired at higher loads, the mechanistic underpinnings are unclear. As a result, we lack convincing cognitive remediation of load-dependent deficits. We hypothesize that reduced WM capacity arises from a disruption in dynamic functional connectivity when patients face cognitive demands. We calculate the dynamic voxel-wise degree centrality (dDC) across the functional connectome in 142 patients with schizophrenia and 88 healthy controls (HCs) facing different WM loads during an n-back task. We tested associations of the altered variability in dDC and clinical symptoms and identified intermediate connectivity configurations (clustered states) across time during WM operation. These analyses were repeated in another independent dataset of 169 subjects (102 with schizophrenia). Compared with HCs, patients showed an increased dDC variability of supplementary motor area (SMA) for the "2back vs. 0back" contrast. This instability at the SMA seen in patients correlated with increased positive symptoms and followed a limited "U-shape" pattern at rest-condition and 2 loads. In the clustering analysis, patients showed reduced centrality in the SMA, superior temporal gyrus, and putamen. These results were replicated in a constrained search in the second independent dataset. Schizophrenia is characterized by a load-dependent reduction of stable centrality in SMA; this relates to the severity of positive symptoms, especially disorganized behaviour. Restoring SMA stability in the presence of cognitive demands may have a therapeutic effect in schizophrenia.

Working memory updating in individuals with bipolar and unipolar depression: fMRI study

Understanding neurobiological characteristics of cognitive dysfunction in distinct psychiatric disorders remains challenging. In this secondary data analysis, we examined neurobiological differences in brain response during working memory updating among individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), those with unipolar depression (UD), and healthy controls (HC). Individuals between 18–45 years of age with BD (n = 100), UD (n = 109), and HC (n = 172) were scanned using fMRI while performing 0-back (easy) and 2-back (difficult) tasks with letters as the stimuli and happy, fearful, or neutral faces as distractors. The 2(n-back) × 3(groups) × 3(distractors) ANCOVA examined reaction time (RT), accuracy, and brain activation during the task. HC showed more accurate and faster responses than individuals with BD and UD. Difficulty-related activation in the prefrontal, posterior parietal, paracingulate cortices, striatal, lateral occipital, precuneus, and thalamic regions differed among groups. Individuals with BD showed significantly lower difficulty-related activation differences in the left lateral occipital and the right paracingulate cortices than those with UD. In individuals with BD, greater difficulty-related worsening in accuracy was associated with smaller activity changes in the right precuneus, while greater difficulty-related slowing in RT was associated with smaller activity changes in the prefrontal, frontal opercular, paracingulate, posterior parietal, and lateral occipital cortices. Measures of current depression and mania did not correlate with the difficulty-related brain activation differences in either group. Our findings suggest that the alterations in the working memory circuitry may be a trait characteristic of reduced working memory capacity in mood disorders. Aberrant patterns of activation in the left lateral occipital and paracingulate cortices may be specific to BD.

Moderating Effects of Self-Efficacy and Time Pressure on the Relationship Between Employee Aging and Work Performance

PurposeThe relationships among employee aging, working memory capacity, and task performance in the context of information technology were studied, and these investigations in turn provide insight into improving employee task performance and mitigating the negative effects of employee aging.Participants and MethodsBased on the limited resource theory and the inhibitory deficit theory, a total of 296 valid questionnaires were collected and the relationships among the variables were examined using cascaded linear regression via SPSS 22.0.ResultsAging negatively affects working memory capacity and task performance. Working memory capacity partially mediates the relationship between age and task performance. Time pressure can exacerbate the negative effects of age on task performance, and self-efficacy mitigates the negative effects of age on task performance.DiscussionEmployee information system learning and training can be enhanced to ameliorate the negative impact of aging on task performance. IT-related work can be limited to a manageable level to reduce the negative effects of reduced working memory capacity. Employees’ internal motivation can be gradually cultivated, and employees can be guided toward the improvement of their IT self-efficacy.

The impact of nomophobia and smartphone presence on fluid intelligence and attention

Nomophobia and even simply the presence of smartphones has an impact on attention and performance, likely through the cognitive mechanism of reduced working memory capacity. When a smartphone, a personally relevant stimulus, is present, working memory capacity is utilized leading to a reduction in the ability to inhibit responses and therefore difficulty with complex attentional tasks. With the increase in smartphone ownership, especially among young adults in developing nations and their proliferation in undergraduate classrooms, it becomes important to understand their cognitive impact in this demographic of users. Therefore, this study evaluated the impact of the presence of undergraduate students’ smartphones on their performance on a non-verbal reasoning task, as well as a series of simple to complex attentional tasks. A total of 154 Pakistani undergraduate students participated in this study. Results demonstrated that the presence or absence of the students’ smartphones did not affect fluid non-verbal intelligence or simple attentional tasks. However, the level of fear of being without their smartphone was correlated with non-verbal fluid intelligence and simple attention. Importantly, when the students’ smartphones were present, they experienced difficulty with a more complex attentional task, regardless of the level of nomophobia. Given the need for fluid reasoning and the complex nature of most material covered within the undergraduate classroom context, this finding indicates a need for education about the detrimental nature of smartphone presence on complex attention, as well as the relationship between nomophobia and fluid reasoning and attention. Implications also include a need for institutional policies clarifying appropriate use of smartphones in the classroom.

Working Memory and Cross-Frequency Coupling of Neuronal Oscillations.

Working memory (WM) is the active retention and processing of information over a few seconds and is considered an essential component of cognitive function. The reduced WM capacity is a common feature in many diseases, such as schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The theta-gamma neural code is an essential component of memory representations in the multi-item WM. A large body of studies have examined the association between cross-frequency coupling (CFC) across the cerebral cortices and WM performance; electrophysiological data together with the behavioral results showed the associations between CFC and WM performance. The oscillatory entrainment (sensory, non-invasive electrical/magnetic, and invasive electrical) remains the key method to investigate the causal relationship between CFC and WM. The frequency-tuned non-invasive brain stimulation is a promising way to improve WM performance in healthy and non-healthy patients with cognitive impairment. The WM performance is sensitive to the phase and rhythm of externally applied stimulations. CFC-transcranial-alternating current stimulation (CFC-tACS) is a recent approach in neuroscience that could alter cognitive outcomes. The studies that investigated (1) the association between CFC and WM and (2) the brain stimulation protocols that enhanced WM through modulating CFC by the means of the non-invasive brain stimulation techniques have been included in this review. In principle, this review can guide the researchers to identify the most prominent form of CFC associated with WM processing (e.g., theta/gamma phase-amplitude coupling), and to define the previously published studies that manipulate endogenous CFC externally to improve WM. This in turn will pave the path for future studies aimed at investigating the CFC-tACS effect on WM. The CFC-tACS protocols need to be thoroughly studied before they can be considered as therapeutic tools in patients with WM deficits.

Lesions and reduced working memory impair emotion recognition in self and others

ABSTRACT Emotion recognition (ER) can be conceived of as an integration of affective cues in working memory. We examined whether reduced working memory capacity and brain lesions in neural networks involved in emotion processing interactively impair ER of both one’s own and another person’s emotions. To assess the recognition of one’s own and other’s emotions, pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and facial expressions from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) database representing fear, anger, disgust, and sadness were presented to 40 lesioned patients and 40 healthy students. To manipulate working memory, a math task was imposed between exposure to the stimuli and collection of responses. Participants indicated the intensity of each of the four emotions for each picture. ER was computed as the difference between trials where the elicited emotion matched the requested emotion and trials where the elicited and requested emotions did not match. Whereas lesions impaired ER in both self and others, working memory load exclusively decreased recognition of other persons’ emotions.

Psychopathology mediates between maltreatment and memory functioning in Burundian refugee youth

BackgroundThe detrimental impact of child maltreatment on children and adolescents' academic achievement and later socioeconomic wellbeing is well known. However, it is still unclear (1) whether maltreatment is actually linked to youth's long- and short-term memory deficits and (2) whether potential impairments are due to maltreatment per se or related psychopathology. ObjectiveBased on the Attentional Control Theory, we investigated a mediational model in which maltreatment would be related to psychopathology (internalizing symptoms, posttraumatic stress symptoms, posttraumatic cognitions), which would in turn be related to impaired memory functioning. Participants and settingWe drew on a sample of 155 Burundian refugee youth (aged 11 to 15) currently living in refugee camps in Tanzania and at high risk of experiencing ongoing maltreatment by parents. MethodsYouth reported on their experiences of maltreatment and psychopathology in structured clinical interviews and completed visuospatial memory tasks involving a short-term and a working memory component (Corsi Block Tapping Test) and delayed recall from long-term memory (Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure). ResultsStructural equation modeling showed that psychopathology mediated the association between increased maltreatment and reduced working memory capacity (β = −0.07, p = .02), with a trend towards mediation for short-term memory (β = −0.05, p = .06). Higher levels of maltreatment, but not psychopathology, were directly linked to long-term memory deficits (β = −0.20, p = .02). ConclusionsPreventive efforts targeting maltreatment and interventions focusing on related psychopathology are needed to counter memory deficits and their potential negative implications for academic and socioeconomic outcomes.

Affective Modulation of Working Memory Maintenance: The Role of Positive and Negative Emotions.

The present study investigated the impact of task-irrelevant emotional images on the retention of information in spatial working memory (WM). Two experiments employed a delayed matching to-sample task where participants had to maintain the locations of four briefly presented squares. After a short retention interval, a probe item appeared and participants were required to indicate whether the probe position matched one of the previously occupied square positions. During the retention interval, task-irrelevant negative, positive, or neutral emotional pictures were presented. The results revealed a dissociation between negative and positive affect on the participants' ability to hold spatial locations in WM. While negative affective pictures reduced WM capacity, positive pictures increased WM capacity relative to the neutral images. Moreover, the specific valence and arousal of a given emotional picture was also related to WM performance: While higher valence enhanced WM capacity, higher levels of arousal in turn reduced WM capacity. Together, our findings suggest that emotions up- or down-regulate attention to items in WM and thus modulate the short term storage of visual information in memory.

Transdiagnostic comparison of visual working memory capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

BackgroundImpaired working memory is a core cognitive deficit in both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Its study might yield crucial insights into the underpinnings of both disorders on the cognitive and neurophysiological level. Visual working memory capacity is a particularly promising construct for such translational studies. However, it has not yet been investigated across the full spectrum of both disorders. The aim of our study was to compare the degree of reductions of visual working memory capacity in patients with bipolar disorder (PBD) and patients with schizophrenia (PSZ) using a paradigm well established in cognitive neuroscience.Methods62 PBD, 64 PSZ, and 70 healthy controls (HC) completed a canonical visual change detection task. Participants had to encode the color of four circles and indicate after a short delay whether the color of one of the circles had changed or not. We estimated working memory capacity using Pashler’s K.ResultsWorking memory capacity was significantly reduced in both PBD and PSZ compared to HC. We observed a small effect size (r = .202) for the difference between HC and PBD and a medium effect size (r = .370) for the difference between HC and PSZ. Working memory capacity in PSZ was also significantly reduced compared to PBD with a small effect size (r = .201). Thus, PBD showed an intermediate level of impairment.ConclusionsThese findings provide evidence for a gradient of reduced working memory capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, with PSZ showing the strongest degree of impairment. This underscores the importance of disturbed information processing for both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Our results are compatible with the cognitive manifestation of a neurodevelopmental gradient affecting bipolar disorder to a lesser degree than schizophrenia. They also highlight the relevance of visual working memory capacity for the development of both behavior- and brain-based transdiagnostic biomarkers.

Role of aging and working memory in performance on a naturalistic visual search task

Studying age-related changes in working memory (WM) and visual search can provide insights into mechanisms of visuospatial attention. In visual search, WM is used to remember previously inspected objects/locations and to maintain a mental representation of the target to guide the search. We sought to extend this work, using aging as a case of reduced WM capacity. The present study tested whether various domains of WM would predict visual search performance in both young (n = 47; aged 18–35 yrs) and older (n = 48; aged 55–78) adults. Participants completed executive and domain-specific WM measures, and a naturalistic visual search task with (single) feature and triple-conjunction (three-feature) search conditions. We also varied the WM load requirements of the search task by manipulating whether a reference picture of the target (i.e., target template) was displayed during the search, or whether participants needed to search from memory. In both age groups, participants with better visuospatial executive WM were faster to locate complex search targets. Working memory storage capacity predicted search performance regardless of target complexity; however, visuospatial storage capacity was more predictive for young adults, whereas verbal storage capacity was more predictive for older adults. Displaying a target template during search diminished the involvement of WM in search performance, but this effect was primarily observed in young adults. Age-specific interactions between WM and visual search abilities are discussed in the context of mechanisms of visuospatial attention and how they may vary across the lifespan.

The propensity to perceive meaningful coincidences is associated with increased posterior alpha power during retention of information in a modified Sternberg paradigm.

There are ample inter-individual differences in the frequency with which people perceive meaningful coincidences. Previous research has identified increased proactive interference, that is a reduced working memory capacity, as one possible mechanism associated with this phenomenon. The present study aimed at extending this finding into the domain of neuroscience, (1) by assessing EEG alpha oscillations during the retention of information, (2) by replicating the behavioral link between meaningful coincidences and proactive interference. In a sample of 52 participants, the behavioral replication was successful. Furthermore, participants who perceived more meaningful coincidences showed higher alpha power increases at parietal-occipital sites, and at the same time, displayed lower alpha power increases at frontal areas, during retention of information. This neurophysiological activation pattern further underlines the assumption that participants who perceive more meaningful coincidences show lower working memory capacities, since increased alpha power at parietal areas reflects a higher load on working memory demands.

An investigation of children’s working memory capacity for task rules

Studies investigating the development of working memory typically measure children’s ability to maintain declarative information (e.g., lists of words) for a short period of time. But working memory also relies on the maintenance of procedural information such as task rules to guide behavior. In comparison to children’s working memory capacity for declarative information, little remains known about how children’s ability to maintain and act on procedural information in working memory develops throughout childhood. For this reason, Experiments 1 and 2 investigated whether children’s working memory capacity for task rules increased with age, using the increase in reaction time with the number of stimulus-response mappings as an index of working memory capacity. Children aged between 5 and 11 completed a stimulus identification task in which the number of stimulus-response rules was varied. Overall, set-size effects decreased with age, suggesting that younger children have a reduced working memory capacity for task rules. A proportional analysis of the reaction time data confirmed that age-related differences in overall reaction time cannot explain this finding. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that age differences in basic capacity, rather than strategic ability, are the cause of the observed difference in working memory capacity. Hence, these results show that developmental differences in working memory capacity affect not only a child’s ability to recall information, but also their ability to act accordingly.

Poor Sleep Quality and Compromised Visual Working Memory Capacity.

Reduction in the amount of information (storage capacity) retained in working memory (WM) has been associated with sleep loss. The present study examined whether reduced WM capacity is also related to poor everyday sleep quality and, more importantly, whether the effects of sleep quality could be dissociated from the effects of depressed mood and age on WM. In two studies, WM was assessed using a short-term recall task, producing behavioral measures for both the amount of retained WM information (capacity) and how precise the retained WM representations were (precision). Self-report measures of sleep quality and depressed mood were obtained using questionnaires. In a sample of college students, Study 1 found that poor sleep quality and depressed mood could independently predict reduced WM capacity, but not WM precision. Study 2 generalized these sleep- and mood-related WM capacity effects to a community sample (aged 21-77 years) and further showed that age was associated with reduced WM precision. Together, these findings demonstrate dissociable effects of three health-related factors (sleep, mood, and age) on WM representations and highlighte the importance of assessing different aspects of WM representations (e.g., capacity and precision) in future neuropsychological research.

The speed of parietal theta frequency drives visuospatial working memory capacity.

The speed of theta brain oscillatory activity is thought to play a key role in determining working memory (WM) capacity. Individual differences in the length of a theta cycle (ranging between 4 and 7 Hz) might determine how many gamma cycles (>30 Hz) can be nested into a theta wave. Gamma cycles are thought to represent single memory items; therefore, this interplay could determine individual memory capacity. We directly tested this hypothesis by means of parietal transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) set at slower (4 Hz) and faster (7 Hz) theta frequencies during a visuospatial WM paradigm. Accordingly, we found that 4-Hz tACS enhanced WM capacity, while 7-Hz tACS reduced WM capacity. Notably, these effects were found only for items presented to the hemifield contralateral to the stimulation site. This provides causal evidence for a frequency-dependent and spatially specific organization of WM storage, supporting the theta–gamma phase coupling theory of WM capacity.

Razumijevanje sintaktičkih struktura u odrasloj dobi – podatci s TROG-2

Ageing is a complex process characterised by numerous changes like sensory deficits, reduced working memory capacity, slowing of general perceptive and cognitive abilities and changes in language processing. As syntactic processing in adulthood is an understudied field in Croatian language, the main goal of this paper was to examine the comprehension of syntactic structures in adult age. For the purpose of this study TROG-2:HR Test for the reception of grammar (TROG-2:HR; Bishop, Kuvač Kraljević et al., 2014) has been used. The research aimed at inspecting the correlation between age and comprehension of different syntactic structures. Moreover, the goal was to observe the differences between three groups of adult participants, with the assumption that the differences will be manifested for complex structures only, with youngest participants outperforming the rest. There were 69 people in the younger group of participants (aged 18 to 39), 58 in the middle group (aged 40 to 64), and 32 in the older group (aged 65 to 87). The results indicate there is a significant correlation between age and 11 syntactic structures, some of which are also simple, which is contradictory to what was initially expected. This means that not only complex structures are susceptible to change with age. Also, between-group differences were observed in the comprehension of three complex and one simple structure, but only between younger and older and middle and older group. Overall findings are in line with prevailing studies which support the account that the ability of understanding complex syntactic structures declines with age.

Deficits in visual working-memory capacity and general cognition in African Americans with psychosis

On average, patients with psychosis perform worse than controls on visual change-detection tasks, implying that psychosis is associated with reduced capacity of visual working memory (WM). In the present study, 79 patients diagnosed with various psychotic disorders and 166 controls, all African Americans, completed a change-detection task and several other neurocognitive measures. The aims of the study were to (1) determine whether we could observe a between-group difference in performance on the change-detection task in this sample; (2) establish whether such a difference could be specifically attributed to reduced WM capacity (k); and (3) estimate k in the context of the general cognitive deficit in psychosis. Consistent with previous studies, patients performed worse than controls on the change-detection task, on average. Bayesian hierarchical cognitive modeling of the data suggested that this between-group difference was driven by reduced k in patients, rather than differences in other psychologically meaningful model parameters (guessing behavior and lapse rate). Using the same modeling framework, we estimated the effect of psychosis on k while controlling for general intellectual ability (g, obtained from the other neurocognitive measures). The results suggested that reduced k in patients was stronger than predicted by the between-group difference in g. Moreover, a mediation analysis suggested that the relationship between psychosis and g (i.e., the general cognitive deficit) was mediated by k. The results were consistent with the idea that reduced k is a specific deficit in psychosis, which contributes to the general cognitive deficit.

Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches

Reciprocal altruism, the most probable mechanism for cooperation among unrelated individuals, can be modelled as a Prisoner’s Dilemma. This game predicts that cooperation should evolve whenever the players, who expect to interact repeatedly, make choices contingent to their partner’s behaviour. Experimental evidence, however, indicates that reciprocity is rare among animals. One reason for this would be that animals are very impulsive compared to humans. Several studies have reported that temporal discounting (that is, strong preferences for immediate benefits) has indeed a negative impact on the occurrence of cooperation. Yet, the role of impulsive action, another facet of impulsiveness, remains unexplored. Here, we conducted a laboratory experiment in which male and female zebra finches (Taenyopigia guttata) were paired assortatively with respect to their level of impulsive action and then played an alternating Prisoner’s Dilemma. As anticipated, we found that self-controlled pairs achieved high levels of cooperation by using a Generous Tit-for-Tat strategy, while impulsive birds that cooperated at a lower level, chose to cooperate with a fixed probability. If the inability of impulsive individuals to use reactive strategies are due to their reduced working memory capacity, thus our findings might contribute to explaining interspecific differences in cooperative behaviour.

P187 Individual differences in parietal theta frequency drive spatial working memory capacity

The speed of fronto-parietal theta oscillatory activity is thought to play a key role in determining working memory (WM) capacity. Individual differences in the length of a theta cycle (ranging between 4 Hz and 7 Hz) might act as an envelope for nested gamma cycles (>30 Hz). This would provide the fundamental neurophysiological mechanism for working memory storage accounting for individual differences in the maximum number of items (number of gamma cycles) retained in the working memory buffer (one theta cycle). Accordingly, it would be expected that slower theta frequencies bind a higher number of gamma cycles per memory buffer resulting in increased memory capacity. Conversely, faster theta frequencies would bind a comparatively smaller number of nested gamma cycles, corresponding to decreased memory capacity. We directly tested this hypothesis by means of right parietal transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS). Specifically, we tested for the impact of down-regulation (4 Hz tACS) and up-regulation (7 Hz tACS) of theta oscillations in a spatial WM paradigm. To this aim eleven participants underwent 4 Hz, 7 Hz and sham stimulation while performing a variation of the Sternberg task. In line with our hypotheses, results showed that down-regulation of right parietal theta by 4 Hz tACS enhanced WM capacity while up-regulation of right parietal theta frequency by 7 Hz tACS reduced WM capacity compared to sham stimulation. These effects were found only for items presented to the left hemifield, i.e. contralateral to the stimulation site, thus providing causal evidence for frequency and spatially tuned WM capacity organization. In conclusion, we provide the first causal evidence that inducing slower parietal theta frequency activity results in higher working memory capacity, while inducing faster parietal theta frequency activity results in reduced working memory capacity, in line with the theta-gamma phase coupling theory of WM capacity.

The perceptual and acoustic characteristics of Japanese elderly speech—The relationship between cognition and speech motor performance

Recent studies showed the evidences that language complexity or cognitive load may deteriorate the speed and accuracy of speech. No study was found to explore the relationship between cognitive load and speech movement directly from the perspective of working memory (WM) capacity. In Reading Span Test (RST), WM capacity would be reduced for speech production as the number of sentences and target words increased. The aim of our study is to reveal perceptual and acoustic characteristics of the elderly speech in relation to WM capacity. It was hypothesized that slower speech rate and/or slurred speech would be observed for elderly adults with reduced WM capacity or low cognitive function. Twelve elderly adult speakers of Japanese participated in this study. The scores of Montreal Cognitive Assessment Japanese version was used to divide the participants into high and low cognitive groups. For RST, each participant was asked to read visually presented sentence(s) aloud and to recall target word(s). Reading performances were recorded by a microphone being set in front of each participant for later acoustic evaluations. The reading performances of two cognitive groups were compared and results regarding on the presence of slower speech rate and slurred speech, judged by experienced speech language pathologists, were presented. We will discuss the relationship between the cognitive load and speech movement in the elderly based on the acoustic evaluation.