Böing Sanne, Ten Brink Antonia F, Ruis Carla, Schielen Zoë A, Van den Berg Esther, Biesbroek J Matthijs, Nijboer Tanja C W, Van der Stigchel Stefan
Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2024 Dec;46(10):943-965. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2024.2447263. Epub 2025 Jan 2.
Individuals with memory impairments may need to rely often on the external world (i.e. offloading). By memorizing only a fraction of the items at hand, and repeatedly looking back to the remainder of items (i.e. inspecting), they can avoid frailty or effortful memory use. However, individuals with subjective concerns may also prefer to rely on the external world even though their capacity is intact. Crucially, capacity assessment fails to recognize offloading strategies, while inspection assessment may reveal how people choose to deploy memory in everyday life. To disentangle the relative contributions of memory capacity and memory self-efficacy to offloading behavior, we recruited 29 individuals who were referred to a memory clinic and 38 age-matched individuals. We assessed memory capacity using neuropsychological measures, and memory self-efficacy using questionnaires. Inspection behavior was assessed in a copy task that allowed participants to store information to their preferred load or to rely on the external world. Referred individuals had lower capacity scores and lower memory self-efficacy. They inspected as often as controls, but used longer inspections and performed worse. Across all subjects, memory capacity - but not memory self-efficacy - explained inspection frequency and duration, with higher capacity associated with fewer and shorter inspections. Capacity measures thus translate to how people choose to deploy their memory in tasks that do not force full capacity use. However, people generally avoided remembering more than two items per inspection, and thus avoided using their full capacity. Inspection behavior was not further explained by memory self-efficacy, suggesting that inspections are not a sensitive measure of constraints experienced in everyday life. Although we provide support for the predictive value of capacity tasks in tasks with more degrees of freedom, capacity tasks overlook offloading behavior that individuals may employ to avoid using their full memory capacity in everyday life.
有记忆障碍的个体可能经常需要依赖外部世界（即卸载）。通过只记住手头一部分物品，并反复查看其余物品（即检查），他们可以避免记忆功能衰退或过度费力地使用记忆。然而，即使能力完好，有主观担忧的个体也可能更倾向于依赖外部世界。至关重要的是，能力评估无法识别卸载策略，而检查评估可能会揭示人们在日常生活中如何选择运用记忆。为了厘清记忆能力和记忆自我效能对卸载行为的相对贡献，我们招募了29名被转介到记忆诊所的个体和38名年龄匹配的个体。我们使用神经心理学测量方法评估记忆能力，使用问卷评估记忆自我效能。在一项复制任务中评估检查行为，该任务允许参与者将信息存储到他们偏好的负荷量，或者依赖外部世界。被转介的个体能力得分较低，记忆自我效能也较低。他们检查的频率与对照组一样，但检查时间更长且表现更差。在所有受试者中，记忆能力——而非记忆自我效能——解释了检查频率和持续时间，能力越高，检查次数越少且时间越短。因此，能力测量结果可以转化为人们在不强制充分使用能力的任务中如何选择运用记忆。然而，人们通常每次检查时避免记住超过两件物品，因此避免充分使用他们的能力。记忆自我效能并未进一步解释检查行为，这表明检查并非日常生活中所体验到的限制的敏感测量指标。尽管我们支持能力任务在具有更多自由度的任务中的预测价值，但能力任务忽略了个体在日常生活中可能采用的避免充分使用其全部记忆能力的卸载行为。
