Wolk David A, Schacter Daniel L, Berman Alyssa R, Holcomb Phillip J, Daffner Kirk R, Budson Andrew E
Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2005;43(11):1662-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.01.007. Epub 2005 Feb 23.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been found to be relatively dependent on familiarity in their recognition memory judgments. Conceptual fluency has been argued to be an important basis of familiarity. This study investigated the extent to which patients with mild AD use conceptual fluency cues in their recognition decisions. While no evidence of recognition memory was found in the patients with AD, enhanced conceptual fluency was associated with a higher rate of "Old" responses (items endorsed as having been studied) compared to when fluency was not enhanced. The magnitude of this effect was similar for patients with AD and healthy control participants. Additionally, ERP recordings time-locked to test item presentation revealed preserved modulations thought critical to the effect of conceptual fluency on test performance (N400 and late frontal components) in the patients with AD, consistent with the behavioral results. These findings suggest that patients with mild AD are able to use conceptual fluency in their recognition judgments and the neural mechanisms supporting such processing is maintained.
研究发现，阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者在识别记忆判断中相对依赖熟悉度。概念流畅性被认为是熟悉度的重要基础。本研究调查了轻度AD患者在识别决策中使用概念流畅性线索的程度。虽然在AD患者中未发现识别记忆的证据，但与流畅性未增强时相比，概念流畅性增强与更高的“旧”反应率（被认可为已学习过的项目）相关。AD患者和健康对照参与者的这种效应大小相似。此外，与测试项目呈现时间锁定的ERP记录显示，AD患者中对概念流畅性对测试表现的影响至关重要的调制（N400和晚期额叶成分）得以保留，这与行为结果一致。这些发现表明，轻度AD患者能够在识别判断中使用概念流畅性，并且支持这种处理的神经机制得以维持。
