No abstract

Directed forgetting research shows that people can inhibit the retrieval of words that they were previously instructed to forget. The present research applied the directed forgetting procedure to the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) recall task to determine if directed forgetting instructions have similar or different effects on accurate and false memory. After studying lists of semantically related words, some participants were told to forget those lists, whereas other participants were not. All participants were then shown additional lists to remember. Following study, all participants were asked to free recall as many of the studied words as possible, including those they were previously instructed to forget. Directed forgetting instructions inhibited the accurate recall of studied words, but not the false recall of nonstudied critical words, whether measured by a within-participant or between-participants design. Contrary to an implicit activation hypothesis, false memories survived instructions to forget. These findings were reviewed in terms of fuzzy trace theory and the activation/monitoring approach to false memory.

This study assessed agreement between physician and patient self-reported measures of dyspnea severity during acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). Both the physician and patient measured the change in dyspnea severity over 1 hour using 2 methods: (1) the difference of two static dyspnea measures (STATIC) and (2) a single transitional measure (TRANS). Likert scales and visual analog scales (VASs) were used. Data on 112 patients were analyzed. The mean difference between physician and patient VAS scores was 1 mm (limits of agreement: -54 to 56 mm) using the STATIC data. For TRANS data, the mean difference was 5 mm (limits of agreement: -75 to 86 mm). For the Likert scales, the weighted kappa was 0.13 and 0.23 for STATIC and TRANS data, respectively. The wide limits of agreement restrict our ability to substitute physician assessment for patient self-assessment of dyspnea in patients with ADHF.

This study assessed the convergent validity of 2 dyspnea measures, the transition measure and the change measure, by comparing them with each other in patients admitted to the hospital with acute decompensated heart failure. Static measures of dyspnea were obtained at baseline (pre‐static measure) and at time 1 hour and 4 hour (post‐static measures). The change measure was calculated as the difference between the pre‐static and post‐static measures. Transition measures were obtained at time 1 hour and 4 hour. Visual analog scales and Likert scales were used. Both physicians and patients measured the dyspnea independently. A total of 112 patients had complete data sets at time 0 and 1 hour and 86 patients had complete data sets at all 3 time points. Correlations were calculated between the transition measures and static measures (pre‐static, post‐static, and change measure). Bland‐Altman plots were generated and the mean difference and limits of agreement between the transition measures and the change measures were calculated. In general, short‐term dyspnea assessment using transition measures and serial static measures can not be used to validate each other in this population of patients being admitted with acute decompensated heart failure. Congest Heart Fail. 2010;16:202–207. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.