Cacace A T, McFarland D J, Emrich J F, Haller J S
Department of Surgery, Albany Medical College, NY 12208.
J Neurosci Methods. 1992 Sep;44(2-3):145-55. doi: 10.1016/0165-0270(92)90007-z.
The rationale and methodology for using computer-controlled forced-choice psychophysical methods to assess short-term recognition memory in human subjects are presented. Here, we use non-verbal computer-synthesized auditory and visual stimuli with an adaptive psychophysical procedure. Sequence-length thresholds (SLTs, span lengths) for randomly generated binary auditory and visual-sequential patterns and simultaneous visual-spatial patterns are determined to assess short-term memory capacity. The SLTs can also be used to equate for initial retention level for delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) or delayed matching-to-non-sample (DMNS) tasks which assess memory decay. The DMS/DMNS tasks have also been modified for use with the forced-choice paradigm. In contrast to many verbal paradigms requiring immediate ordered recall, non-verbal stimuli in a forced-choice paradigm provide a more direct measure of sensory memory because long-term memory, complex encoding/decoding processes, and motor-sequencing factors are minimized or avoided. Furthermore, the forced-choice recognition memory tasks are applicable over a broad age range, are less sensitive to socio-economic factors and educational level, and avoid complex instructions. Taken together, these factors enhance the applicability of these tasks in children and adults with CNS lesions, particularly where cognitive status may be compromised.
介绍了使用计算机控制的强制选择心理物理学方法来评估人类受试者短期识别记忆的基本原理和方法。在这里，我们使用非语言计算机合成的听觉和视觉刺激以及自适应心理物理学程序。确定随机生成的二进制听觉和视觉序列模式以及同时的视觉空间模式的序列长度阈值（SLT，跨度长度），以评估短期记忆容量。SLT还可用于在评估记忆衰退的延迟匹配样本（DMS）或延迟匹配非样本（DMNS）任务中使初始保留水平相等。DMS/DMNS任务也已针对强制选择范式进行了修改。与许多需要立即顺序回忆的语言范式不同，强制选择范式中的非语言刺激提供了对感觉记忆的更直接测量，因为长期记忆、复杂的编码/解码过程和运动序列因素被最小化或避免。此外，强制选择识别记忆任务适用于广泛的年龄范围，对社会经济因素和教育水平不太敏感，并且避免了复杂的指令。综上所述，这些因素增强了这些任务在患有中枢神经系统病变的儿童和成人中的适用性，特别是在认知状态可能受到损害的情况下。
