Carmona, I., Vivas, A.B. and Estévez, A.F. (2019) Differential outcomes training ameliorates visual memory impairments in patients With Alzheimer's disease: A pilot study. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. 2671. ISSN 1664-1078
Abstract
It is well known that Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is associated with deficits in cognitive processes including visual memory impairments. One technique that might be used to ameliorate these impairments is the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) that involves associating each to-be-remembered stimulus with a specific outcome. Objective: Previous research has demonstrated that the DOP can be used to reduce or eliminate the learning and memory deficits associated with animal models of amnesia and dementia. Furthermore, this procedure has been shown to improve delayed facial recognition in healthy older adults as well as in patients diagnosed with AD. The main aim of the present study is twofold: to extend these findings to other types of visual stimulus and to investigate the effect of the DOP in memory retention in AD patients. Method: Ten patients diagnosed with AD and 10 healthy controls participated in this study. The experiment included two phases. In the first one, they had to perform a delayed matching-to-sample task. In the second phase, participants performed a recognition memory task, designed to assess long-term retention, 1 h and 1 week after the training. Results: Participants showed a better memory-based performance as well as a higher long-term retention of the information when trained under the differential outcomes condition, relative to the non-differential outcomes condition. Conclusions: The DOP seems to be an effective, easy-to-implement, technique to enhance visual memory in AD patients.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Carmona, Vivas and Estévez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Alzheimer’s disease; cognitive training; differential outcomes procedure; long-term retention; visual recognition memory |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Mar 2019 11:27 |
Last Modified: | 18 Mar 2019 11:27 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02671 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:143200 |