Accessibility navigation


Enhancing prospective memory in mild cognitive impairment: the role of enactment

Pereira, A., de Mendonca, A., Silva, D., Guerreiro, M., Freeman, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6457-8171 and Ellis, J. (2015) Enhancing prospective memory in mild cognitive impairment: the role of enactment. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 37 (8). pp. 863-877. ISSN 1380-3395

[img] Text - Accepted Version
· Restricted to Repository staff only
· The Copyright of this document has not been checked yet. This may affect its availability.

666kB

It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing.

To link to this item DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2015.1072499

Abstract/Summary

Prospective memory (PM) is a fundamental requirement for independent living which might be prematurely compromised in the neurodegenerative process, namely in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a typical prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD) phase. Most encoding manipulations that typically enhance learning in healthy adults are of minimal benefit to AD patients. However, there is some indication that these can display a recall advantage when encoding is accompanied by the physical enactment of the material. The aim of this study was to explore the potential benefits of enactment at encoding and cue-action relatedness on memory for intentions in MCI patients and healthy controls using a behavioral PM experimental paradigm. Method: We report findings examining the influence of enactment at encoding for PM performance in MCI patients and education-matched controls using a laboratory-based PM task with a factorial independent design. Results: PM performance was consistently superior when physical enactment was used at encoding and when target-action pairs were strongly associated. Importantly, these beneficial effects were cumulative and observable across both a healthy and a cognitively impaired lifespan as well as evident in the perceived subjective difficulty in performing the task. Conclusions: The identified beneficial effects of enacted encoding and semantic relatedness have unveiled the potential contribution of this encoding technique to optimize attentional demands through an adaptive allocation of resources strategies. We discuss our findings with respect to their potential impact on developing strategies to improve PM in AD sufferers.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Ageing
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition
ID Code:44484
Publisher:Routledge

University Staff: Request a correction | Centaur Editors: Update this record

Page navigation