Numminen H, Service E, Ahonen T, Ruoppila I
Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
J Intellect Disabil Res. 2001 Apr;45(Pt 2):157-68. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2788.2001.00298.x.
A number of previous studies have suggested that young people with Down's syndrome (DS) have a specific deficit of the phonological loop component of the working memory. However, there have also been studies which have proposed a specific deficit of the central executive component of working memory and suggested similarities of working memory functioning with patients with Alzheimer's disease. Fifteen middle-aged people with DS were matched for their individual scores of non-verbal intelligence to 15 individuals with mixed aetiology of intellectual disability. A versatile range of tasks was used in order to evaluate the functioning of working memory components. In addition, several everyday cognition skills were assessed. The subjects with DS performed significantly more poorly in all tasks assessing the phonological loop. Performance in other working memory tasks and compound variables representing different working memory components was equal in the groups. In addition, both groups had equal everyday cognition skills. The functioning of the phonological loop seems to be clearly deficient in people with DS. Interestingly, the deficit does not seem to affect the vocabulary or other everyday cognition skills in individuals with DS. No signs of specific deficit of the central executive component of working memory were found.
此前的多项研究表明，患有唐氏综合征（DS）的年轻人在工作记忆的语音回路成分方面存在特定缺陷。然而，也有研究提出工作记忆的中央执行成分存在特定缺陷，并指出工作记忆功能与阿尔茨海默病患者存在相似之处。15名中年唐氏综合征患者根据其非言语智力的个体得分与15名具有混合病因的智力残疾个体进行匹配。为了评估工作记忆成分的功能，使用了一系列通用任务。此外，还评估了几种日常认知技能。唐氏综合征患者在所有评估语音回路的任务中表现明显更差。在其他工作记忆任务以及代表不同工作记忆成分的复合变量方面，两组的表现相当。此外，两组的日常认知技能相当。唐氏综合征患者的语音回路功能似乎明显不足。有趣的是，这种缺陷似乎并未影响唐氏综合征患者的词汇量或其他日常认知技能。未发现工作记忆中央执行成分存在特定缺陷的迹象。
