Forgetting Research Articles

Do familiar memory items decay?

There is a long-standing debate over whether the passage of time causes forgetting from working memory, a process called trace decay. Researchers providing evidence against the existence of trace decay generally study memory by presenting familiar verbal memory items for 1 s or more per memory item, during the study period. In contrast, researchers providing evidence for trace decay tend to use unfamiliar nonverbal memory items presented for 1 s or less per memory item, during the study period. Taken together, these investigations suggest that familiar items may not decay while unfamiliar items do decay. The availability of verbal rehearsal and the time to consolidate a memory item into working memory during presentation may also play a role in whether or not trace decay will occur. Here we explore these alternatives in a series of experiments closely modeled after studies demonstrating time-based forgetting from working memory, but using familiar verbal memory items in place of the unfamiliar memory items used to observe decay in the past. Our findings suggest that time-based forgetting is persistent across all of these factors while simultaneously challenging prominent views of trace decay. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Clinical study of TIP technique combined with acupuncture and oral administration of Chinese medicine on chronic insomnia with syndrome of heart-kidney imbalance

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of low resistance thought induction psychotherapy (TIP) technique combined with acupuncture and oral Chinese medicine in treating chronic insomnia elderly patients with syndrome of heart-kidney imbalance. Methods One hundred sixty-four chronic insomnia patients with syndrome of heart-kidney imbalance were randomly divided into four groups with 41 cases in each group. The control group was treated with family doctor contract, sleep health education and Tianwang-Buxin decoction as the basic treatment, the group A was treated with acupuncture and the basic treatment, the group B was treated with TIP technique and the basic treatment, the group C was treated with the combination of acupuncture and TIP on the basic treatment. After one month' treatment, scores of Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) were used to evaluate sleep quality, sleep efficiency, and the clinical efficacy. Results After treatment, scores of sleep time, sleep efficiency, sleep time, sleep disturbance, daytime function of the group A, B, and C were significantly lower than those in the control group (F value were 44.322, 92.808, 107.131, 79.467, 98.638 respectively, all Ps<0.001), and the group C were significantly lower than those of the test group A and B (P<0.01). Scores of upset, dizziness, tinnitus, hot flashes, and night sweats, hand foot and heart fever, forgetfulness, sores on the tongue and dry stool of the group A, B, and C were significantly lower than those of the control group (F value were 103.32, 135.91, 93.35, 77.61, 57.514, 92.283, 126.097, 53.217, respectively, all Ps<0.001), and the group C were significantly lower than those of the test group A and B (P<0.01). The total clinical efficacy of TCM syndrome and insomnia in group A,B and C was significantly higher than that in the control group (χ2=16.169, P<0.01), and the group C was significantly higher than the group A and B (χ2=8.504, P<0.01). The total clinical efficacy of sleep efficiency in group A, B and C was significantly higher than that in the control group (χ2=14.078, P<0.01), and the group C was significantly higher than the group A and B (χ2=8.856, P<0.01). Conclusions TIP technique combined with acupuncture and oral Chinese medicine can improve sleep quality of chronic insomnia elderly patients with syndrome of heart-kidney imbalance. Key words: Insomnia; Low resistance thought induction psychotherapy; Acupuncture therapy; Tianwang-Buxin decoction; Syndrome of disharmony between heart and kidney

Effects of Hormone Therapy on List and Story Recall in Post-Menopausal Women

ABSTRACTBackground/Study Context: A number of longitudinal randomized controlled trials (LRCT) have used free verbal recall tests to study the effects of post-menopausal estrogen hormone therapy (HT) on episodic memory, but none have explicitly explored contrasts between list and story recall, in spite of cognitive differences between the tasks. For example, list recall provides little support for the use of gist, while story recall emphasizes it, and there is evidence that estrogen produces gist bias. Moreover, we present a literature tabulation that also suggests a task-specific HT effect.Methods: In an LRCT with up to eight yearly test sessions, post-menopausal women were randomly assigned either to placebo (N = 56) or to an estrogen formulation (N = 44); subgroups received either estrogen alone (hysterectomy; E-alone; N = 16) or with progestin (intact uterus; E + P; N = 28). Participants were tested on the immediate and delayed list and story recall at each session.Results: Linear mixed effects analyses of longitudinal trajectories showed that relative to placebo, the HT group declined significantly faster on immediate list recall and slower on immediate story recall. Separate analyses produced a sharpened version of this pattern for the E-alone subgroup but found no significant effects for the E + P subgroup. No significant effects were found in delayed testing.Conclusion: The dissociation we found for immediate list and story recall is similar to the pattern of results in our literature tabulation. Fuzzy-Trace Theory posits parallel verbatim and gist traces plus a meta-cognitive review which becomes more gist-biased with age. Our results suggest that: (1) estrogen increases gist bias, hastening the normal age-related decline of list recall but slowing the decline of story recall relative to placebo; (2) decay of the verbatim trace over time generally causes a shift to gist, thereby accounting for the absence of a delayed recall difference; and (3) progestin weakens the effects of estrogen, thereby accounting for why the dissociation found in E-alone was absent in the E + P subgroup.

Synthetic Literature review of Organizational Forgetting

This paper covers comprehensive literature analysis on organizational forgetting. Work on organizational forgetting was synthesised in systematic and chronological order. Forgetting theories in organizational context have been widely discussed to comprehend forgetting in organizational context. Cognitive, social and behavioural factors of forgetting have been also cited in organization contextual application. All the theories, prevailing context and factors indicate, as evident from content analysis, have greater impact on organizational learning.

Cosmogenic and nucleogenic 21Ne in quartz in a 28-meter sandstone core from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Abstract We measured concentrations of Ne isotopes in quartz in a 27.6-m sandstone core from a low-erosion-rate site at 2183 m elevation at Beacon Heights in the Antarctic Dry Valleys. Surface concentrations of cosmogenic 21Ne indicate a surface exposure age of at least 4.1 Ma and an erosion rate no higher than ca. 14 cm Myr−1 21Ne concentrations in the upper few centimeters of the core show evidence for secondary spallogenic neutron escape effects at the rock surface, which is predicted by first-principles models of cosmogenic-nuclide production but is not commonly observed in natural examples. We used a model for 21Ne production by various mechanisms fit to the observations to distinguish cosmic-ray-produced 21Ne from nucleogenic 21Ne produced by decay of trace U and Th present in quartz, and also constrain rates of subsurface 21Ne production by cosmic-ray muons. Core samples have a quartz (U-Th)/Ne closure age, reflecting cooling below approximately 95 °C, near 160 Ma, which is consistent with existing apatite fission-track data and the 183 Ma emplacement of nearby Ferrar dolerite intrusions. Constraints on 21Ne production by muons derived from model fitting are consistent with a previously proposed value of 0.79 mb at 190 GeV for the cross-section for 21Ne production by fast muon interactions, but indicate that 21Ne production by negative muon capture is likely negligible.

Bidirectional decay of auditory memory traces for pitch in speech sounds

Previous studies have shown human listeners have greater detection sensitivity to pitch increment than decrement in successive sounds. Assuming deviance detection is based on the comparison between the memory trace of a recent stimulus and the neural representation of a new stimulus, one hypothesis is that this differential sensitivity between increment and decrement is caused by the downward decay of pitch’s memory trace. Under the same assumption, the present study found bidirectional—as opposed to the predicted unidirectional—decay of memory traces for pitch in speech sounds by measuring listeners' sensitivity to pitch change over varying time intervals with an AX discrimination task. Three properties in the AX task were randomly sampled from preset ranges: (1) f0 of the A token (163:320 Hz), (2) difference between the f0s of A and X (-30:30Hz), and (3) the inter-stimulus interval (ISI; 0:3 s). We found when the stimuli were in the lower portion of the speaker’s pitch range, listeners were less sensitive to pitch increments at larger ISIs. Meanwhile, when the stimuli were in the higher pitch range, listeners were less sensitive to pitch decrements at larger ISIs. These results suggest memory traces for pitch in speech sounds decay toward a center pitch.

Acceptance of a medication refill reminder service in German community pharmacy practice.

Medication refill reminder services (MRRS), having the potential to support the detection of non-adherence and to promote periodic medication refilling by addressing forgetfulness, are not generally available in community pharmacy practice. Based on a new software module, a MRRS was developed. The acceptance of this service was tested in community pharmacies in Germany. Patients were recruited by trained pharmacy staff. Supported by the software, the pharmacies reminded patients to refill their prescription. After 7 months, the service was evaluated by patients and pharmacy staff. The pharmacy owners/managers were interviewed. Ten pharmacies applied the service to 148 patients, with 806 refill reminders for 391 drugs. Seventy-five patients (50.7%) chose to be reminded by a phone call, followed by text message (n=25), and email (n=18). Of all patients, 75 (50.7%) completed the paper-based questionnaire. Sixty-eight (90.7%) rated the service as good or very good and 54 (72.0%) felt more satisfied with their pharmacy. Sixty-four patients (85.3%) considered the service as supportive and wanted to continue. Thirty-nine pharmacy staff members (61.9%) answered the online questionnaire. Twenty-four (61.5%) stated that they found it difficult to use and apply the MRRS; twenty-six (66.6%) experienced technical problems. The service was rated good by 16 (41.0%) pharmacy staff members. They regarded the service helpful for some patients and wanted to continue after the end of the study. The majority of the ten interviewed pharmacy owners/managers expressed the opinion that the service was not very suitable for increasing customer loyalty and not cost-effective. Nevertheless, six (60.0%) of them wanted to continue using the service. The MRRS seems to be feasible, apart from technical difficulties. Patients rated the service as supportive, and the personal contact seems to be of high importance; most patients would like to continue the service. However, offering the service to patients turned out to be challenging in daily German community pharmacy practice.

The Long-Term Stability of a Fused-Silica Proportional Counter

The long-term stability of the counting and spectrometric characteristics of a fused silica proportional counter has been investigated to assess its applicability to search for an admixture of sterile neutrinos. The results of continuous measurements of the K-peak position in the spectrum of deposited energies from decay of 37Ar traces in a counter filled with CO2 are presented. It is shown that the gas amplification remained stable within 0.1% during 1 month of continuous measurements at an initial isotope activity of approximately 100 Bq. This estimate of the stability of a fused silica counter is 5 times better than the values published earlier.

Modulation of auditory sensory memory by chronic clinical pain and acute experimental pain: a mismatch negativity study

Pain, especially chronic pain, can lead to cognitive deficits. Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a change-specific component of the auditory event-related brain potential (ERP) that is thought to provide a unique window into sensory memory processes. The present study was designed to determine how chronic and acute pain affects auditory sensory memory. In experiment 1, MMNs elicited by standard and deviant auditory stimuli at short and long inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) were compared between trigeminal neuralgia (TN) patients and demographically matched healthy controls (HCs). The TN patients were found to have stronger attenuation of the MMN at longer ISIs than HCs. Correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the sensory subscale of McGill Pain Questionnaire and MMN amplitude reduction across ISI conditions. In experiment 2, MMNs recorded before, during, and after the cold pressor test were compared in healthy subjects. MMN amplitude was significantly reduced during pain exposure and recovered immediately thereafter. These results suggest that both chronic pain and acute pain can interfere with automatic change detection processes in the brain. This study provides the first evidence that chronic pain patients have a faster auditory memory trace decay than HCs.

Factors associated with the higher prevalence of common mental disorders: integrative review

The term Common Mental Disorders (CMD) was created by Goldberg and Huxley to encompass a population with depressive and anxious symptoms, such as insomnia, fatigue, irritability, forgetfulness, difficulty of concentration, and somatic complaints which do not fit the formal criteria for diagnosing anxiety and depression according to the psychiatric classification. The global and national prevalence of mental disorders in the primary care represents one-third of the demand. Taking into account the occurrence of CMD in the population and the demand for attention in the health services, the aim of this work was to identify factors associated with higher prevalence of CMD in the adult population in Brazil according to scientific evidence, as well as to describe possibilities of strategies to prevent it. An integrative review was carried out using the following databases: Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and Virtual Health Library (BVS). The search was directed through the descriptors: Common Mental Disorders; prevalence; Self Reporting Questionare-20, having as guiding question: What factors are associated with the higher prevalence of CMD in Brazil? The following exclusion criteria were used: articles with research and/or publication prior to 2007, not presented by the search strategies chosen and those that did not focus on the adult population. The studies were compared and categorized by content similarity for analysis; four categories were established which were associated with a higher prevalence of CMD: gender, income, work-related aspects and other factors (physical activity, schooling and age). The integration of the nineteen selected articles points as factors associated with a higher prevalence of CMD: work-related aspects, being female and having a low income. Other factors such as physical activity, schooling and age were also listed. CMDs are considered a public health problem involving several mechanisms. In view of the results presented, is possible to observe that both the primary care systems, as well as the organizations have the possibility of designing prevention and treatment strategies to mitigate the illness of the adult population.

Forgiving v. Forgetting

Forgiving v. Forgetting

The Duration of Auditory Sensory Memory for Vowel Processing: Neurophysiological and Behavioral Measures.

Speech perception behavioral research suggests that rates of sensory memory decay are dependent on stimulus properties at more than one level (e.g., acoustic level, phonemic level). The neurophysiology of sensory memory decay rate has rarely been examined in the context of speech processing. In a lexical tone study, we showed that long-term memory representation of lexical tone slows the decay rate of sensory memory for these tones. Here, we tested the hypothesis that long-term memory representation of vowels slows the rate of auditory sensory memory decay in a similar way to that of lexical tone. Event-related potential (ERP) responses were recorded to Mandarin non-words contrasting the vowels /i/ vs. /u/ and /y/ vs. /u/ from first-language (L1) Mandarin and L1 American English participants under short and long interstimulus interval (ISI) conditions (short ISI: an average of 575 ms, long ISI: an average of 2675 ms). Results revealed poorer discrimination of the vowel contrasts for English listeners than Mandarin listeners, but with different patterns for behavioral perception and neural discrimination. As predicted, English listeners showed the poorest discrimination and identification for the vowel contrast /y/ vs. /u/, and poorer performance in the long ISI condition. In contrast to Yu et al. (2017), however, we found no effect of ISI reflected in the neural responses, specifically the mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a and late negativity ERP amplitudes. We did see a language group effect, with Mandarin listeners generally showing larger MMN and English listeners showing larger P3a. The behavioral results revealed that native language experience plays a role in echoic sensory memory trace maintenance, but the failure to find an effect of ISI on the ERP results suggests that vowel and lexical tone memory traces decay at different rates.Highlights:We examined the interaction between auditory sensory memory decay and language experience.We compared MMN, P3a, LN and behavioral responses in short vs. long interstimulus intervals.We found that different from lexical tone contrast, MMN, P3a, and LN changes to vowel contrasts are not influenced by lengthening the ISI to 2.6 s.We also found that the English listeners discriminated the non-native vowel contrast with lower accuracy under the long ISI condition.

Auditory Memory Decay as Reflected by a New Mismatch Negativity Score Is Associated with Episodic Memory in Older Adults at Risk of Dementia.

The auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) peaking about 100–250 ms after the onset of a deviant tone in a sequence of identical (standard) tones. Depending on the interstimulus interval (ISI) between standard and deviant tones, the MMN is suitable to investigate the pre-attentive auditory discrimination ability (short ISIs, ≤ 2 s) as well as the pre-attentive auditory memory trace (long ISIs, >2 s). However, current results regarding the MMN as an index for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia are mixed, especially after short ISIs: while the majority of studies report positive associations between the MMN and cognition, others fail to find such relationships. To elucidate these so far inconsistent results, we investigated the validity of the MMN as an index for cognitive impairment exploring the associations between different MMN indices and cognitive performance, more specifically with episodic memory performance which is among the most affected cognitive domains in the course of Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), at baseline and at a 5-year-follow-up. We assessed the amplitude of the MMN for short ISI (stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA = 0.05 s) and for long ISI (3 s) in a neuropsychologically well-characterized cohort of older adults at risk of dementia (subjective memory impairment, amnestic and non-amnestic MCI; n = 57). Furthermore, we created a novel difference score (ΔMMN), defined as the difference between MMNs to short and to long ISI, as a measure to assess the decay of the auditory memory trace, higher values indicating less decay. ΔMMN and MMN amplitude after long ISI, but not the MMN amplitude after short ISI, was associated with episodic memory at baseline (β = 0.38, p = 0.003; β = −0.27, p = 0.047, respectively). ΔMMN, but not the MMN for long ISIs, was positively associated with episodic memory performance at the 5-year-follow-up (β = 0.57, p = 0.013). The results suggest that the MMN after long ISI might be suitable as an indicator for the decline in episodic memory and indicate ΔMMN as a potential biomarker for memory impairment in older adults at risk of dementia.

Impaired Visuospatial Short-Term Memory in Children with ADHD

ABSTRACTPrevious studies provide clear evidence that visuospatial memory performance in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is significantly lower than in typically developing children. In the present study, we investigated a major cause of their low performance using a spatial span test. Possibly, inattention resulting from lack of motivation or interest causes their low performance so that they do not correctly encode targets to be remembered. On the other hand, a deficit in temporary maintenance per se may cause their low performance; that is, their inefficient use of rehearsal during a retention interval may lead to memory traces’ fast decay. Results in this study indicated that children with ADHD could sustain attention during the encoding phase. Furthermore, their performance at delayed recall was significantly lower than immediate recall, but delayed recall did not affect typically developing children's performance. These results provide evidence for the likelihood that a factor causing children with ADHD difficulty in temporarily maintaining visuospatial information is fast decay of memory traces as a result of inefficient use of rehearsal, not inattention in the encoding phase.

Disciplinarity and Forgetfulness: On the Older Historiography of Global Connections

Disciplinarity and Forgetfulness: On the Older Historiography of Global Connections

On the sources of forgetting in working memory: The test of competing hypotheses.

Whether forgetting from working memory (WM) is only due to interference or is also caused by temporal decay is still a matter of debate. In the present study, this question was examined using complex span tasks in which each memory item was followed by a series of processing episodes, the duration and number of which were varied. It is known that recall performance in these tasks depends on the cognitive load ( CL) of concurrent processing conceived as the ratio between processing time and free time, higher CL resulting in lower spans. The decay-and-refresh hypothesis accounts for this effect by assuming that memory traces decay during processing but are refreshed during free time. This hypothesis predicts lower recall performance with longer processing episodes, but no effect of their number as long as CL remains constant. The interference-only hypothesis supposes that free time is used to alleviate the interference created by processing distractors. This hypothesis is potentially compatible with an effect of the duration of processing episodes through increased interference, but predicts a detrimental effect of their number. In three experiments, the recall pattern fitted the predictions of the decay-and-refresh hypothesis for verbal WM, but that of the interference-only hypothesis for visuospatial WM. Although the entire pattern of data is more easily accommodated by the decay-and-refresh hypothesis than by its interference-only contender, our results suggest that it is unwise to aim at identifying a unique source to a complex phenomenon like WM forgetting.

‘Not Cured, Not Forgetful, Not Paralysed’: A Response to Comments on The Tragic Imagination

Modern TheologyVolume 34, Issue 2 p. 280-288 Book Symposium: Rowan Williams, The Tragic Imagination ‘Not Cured, Not Forgetful, Not Paralysed’: A Response to Comments on The Tragic Imagination Rowan Williams, Rowan Williams rw488@cam.ac.uk Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0AG UKSearch for more papers by this author Rowan Williams, Rowan Williams rw488@cam.ac.uk Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0AG UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 December 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12406Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume34, Issue2April 2018Pages 280-288 RelatedInformation

Enhancement of extinction memory by pharmacological and behavioral interventions targeted to its reactivation

Extinction is a process that involves new learning that inhibits the expression of previously acquired memories. Although temporarily effective, extinction does not erase an original fear association. Since the extinction trace tends to fade over time, the original memory can resurge. On the other hand, strengthening effects have been described in several reconsolidation studies using different behavioral and pharmacological manipulations. In order to know whether an extinction memory can be strengthened by reactivation-based interventions in the contextual fear conditioning task, we began by replicating the classic phenomenon of spontaneous recovery to show that brief reexposure sessions can prevent the decay of the extinction trace over time in a long-lasting way. This fear attenuation was shown to depend both on L-type calcium channels and protein synthesis, which suggests a reconsolidation process behind the reactivation-induced strengthening effect. The extinction trace was also susceptible to enhancement by a post-reactivation infusion of a memory-enhancing drug (NaB), which was also able to prevent rapid fear reacquisition (savings). These findings point to new reactivation-based approaches able to strengthen an extinction memory to promote its persistence. The constructive interactions between extinction and reconsolidation may represent a promising novel approach in the realm of fear-related disorder treatments.

Effect of Tianteng Jiangya decoction on blood pressure and vascular endothelial function in essential hypertension

Objective To observe the effect of Tianteng Jiangya decoction on vascular endothelial function in essential hypertension. Methods 70 patients with essential hypertension were enrolled in this study, they were divided into study group(35 cases) and control group(35 cases) according to the random number table.The control group was treated with levamlodipine for 8 weeks, the study group was treated with Tianteng Jiangya decoction on the basis of the control group for 8 weeks.Then, the DBP and SBP were observed before and after treatment.The ET-1 and nitric oxide(NO) were measured by radioimmunoassay and spectrophotometry.The curative effect and symptom of both two groups were evaluated. Results The levels of DBP and SBP in the study group and the control group were (80±4)mmHg and (88±5)mmHg, (118±13)mmHg and (131±15)mmHg, respectively, which were significantly lower than those before treatment(t=7.263, 4.488, 9.227, 4.422, all P 0.05). The total effective rates of dizziness, headache, five upset hot, forgetfulness in the study group and the control group were 89.47% and 64.71%, 90.00% and 63.16%, 88.89% and 50.00%, 82.35% and 47.37%, respectively, the differences were statistically significant (χ2=6.422, 6.585, 6.247, 6.456, all P<0.05). The total effective rate of the study group was 94.29%, which was significantly higher than 71.43% of the control group, the difference was statistically significant(χ2=9.622, P<0.01). Conclusion Tianteng Jiangya decoction can effectively control the blood pressure of patients with essential hypertension, improve the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine and vascular endothelial function, has obvious advantages, it is worthy of clinical use. Key words: Hypertension; Tianteng jiangya decoction; Vascular endothelial growth factors

Blessed Are the Forgetful

Blessed Are the Forgetful