Encoding preferences in memory in dementia.

Encoding preferences in memory were examined in 22 subjects with presumed dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), 22 subjects with presumed multi-infarct dementia (MID), and 19 elderly depressed subjects by means of multiple-choice recognition testing of memory for word lists where target words appeared in choice arrays amongst semantic, acoustic and unrelated distractor words. Performance was worse in dementia than in depression. Subjects with dementia tended to make many unrelated error choices, and in DAT this tendency was stronger in more impaired subjects; but there were no significant differences between groups in the proportions of different types of errors made.