Dementia and Working Memory

Baddeley, Alan; Logie, Robert H.; Bressi, S.; Sala, Sergio Della; Spinnler, Hans

doi:10.1080/14640748608401616

Cited by 605 publications

(420 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Impaired levels of performance have been observed in elderly subjects on divided attention paradigms (Inglis & Caird, 1963;McDowd & Craik, 1988;Salthouse, Rogan, & Prill, 1984;Tun et aI., 1991;Wright, 1981). However, many studies have also failed to observe age differences in divided attention (e.g., Baddeley, Logie, Bressi, Della Sala, & Spinnler, 1986;Belleville, Malenfant, et aI., 1992;Somberg & Salthouse, 1982;Wickens, Braune, & Stokes, 1987). The discrepancy observed here might relate to the failure of previously used paradigms to control for the processing requirement of the individual tasks.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 53%

Effect of normal aging on the manipulation of information in working memory

1998

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The goal of this study is to examine the central executive of working memory in normal aging, specifically focusing on its capacities to manipulate or modify the format of the to-be-recalled material. The central executive was measured with the alphabetical span procedure, during which subjects were asked to recall a random series of words in their alphabetical order. The storage demand was equalized across subjects by adjusting the list lengths according to individual span. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 showed that elderly subjects were not impaired in manipulating information, relative to young controls, even when the difficulty of the task was increased. In Experiment 4, validity was tested by asking young subjects to perform the task under the conditions of full or divided attention. Alphabetical recall was more impaired than direct recall during the divided attention condition, which suggests a larger involvement of the central executive component in the former. These results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis of a central executive impairment being associated with normal aging.Working memory (WM) is a short-term memory system involved in tasks that require concurrent retention and processing (Baddeley, 1986;Baddeley & Hitch, 1974, 1994Salthouse, 1994). In Baddeley's theoretical framework, WM is a tripartite system composed of two specialized slave systems-the phonological loop and the visuo spatial sketchpad-and a central executive. The phonological loop contributes to the retention ofverbal information and is subdivided into a passive phonological store and a rehearsal procedure. The visuospatial sketchpad holds images and spatial information. The central executive is an attentional component involved in the control and distribution oflimited resources (Baddeley, 1986(Baddeley, , 1992Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). This study focuses on the manipulation capacities of the central executive in normal aging. Manipulation is defined as the process of actively and consciously modifying the format of the information to be recalled. Within a WM framework, manipulation would require involvement of the central executive component.This work was supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC; PG-28) and from Ie Fond de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec (FRSQ) to S,8., by a chercheur-boursier fellowship from the FRSQ to S.8., and by a scholarship from the FCAR to N.R. and N,C. The authors thank Laurent Mottron, Francois Crepeau, Geoffrey R. Loftus, Frank Bellezza, and Leah Light for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the text Thanks to Michel Lamoureux and Jean-Francois Angers for statistical advice, as well as to Fanny Guerin, Sherif Karama, and Sonia Litalien for testing assistance. Special thanks to Rodolphe Sauvage for conducting Experiment 3. Finally, the authors gratefully acknowledge Ronald Dixon for his comments and for editing the text. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sylvie Belleville, Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Geriatric de...

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 53%

Effect of normal aging on the manipulation of information in working memory

1998

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“…Evidence for the characteristics of the central executive is accumulating, and its role as coordinator of the slave systems has empirical support (Baddeley, Bressi, Della Sala, Logie, & Spinnler, 1991;Baddeley, Logie, Bressi, Della Sala, & Spinnler, 1986). A similar concept has arisen in studies ofdivided attention where this function is referred to as a cost ofconcurrence (Navon & Gopher, 1979) or as an executive time sharer (Hunt & Lansman, 1982;McLeod, 1977;Moray, 1967;Yee, Hunt, & Pellegrino, 1991).…”

Section: Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Counting on working memory in arithmetic problem solving

1994

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“…These studies have compared the performance of AD patients and normal elderly subjects in tasks investigating one specific aspect of executive function. Some of these studies (Baddeley, Logie, Bressi, et al, 1986;Baddeley, Bressi, Della Sala, et al, 1991;Nestor, Parasuman, & Haxby, 1991) used a dual-task paradigm and found that AD patients were particularly impaired when they had to perform simultaneously two different tasks, even when the difficulty of the tasks performed separately was equated across the groups. Such a difficulty to co-ordinate two tasks was also present when subjects do not have to store presented information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Executive Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease

Collette

Linden

Salmon

1999

Cortex

167

101

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Executive functioning was examined in 20 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 normal elderly subjects. The results showed that AD patients present lower performance compared to control subjects in all executive tasks, confirming that some executive deficits may be present in the first stages of the disease. A factorial analysis suggested that these deficits can be related to two domains of the executive functions: the inhibition abilities and the capacity to co-ordinate simultaneously storage and processing of information. Moreover, the performance on these factors is correlated to different anterior and posterior cortical areas.

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Dementia and Working Memory

Cited by 605 publications

References 15 publications

Effect of normal aging on the manipulation of information in working memory

Effect of normal aging on the manipulation of information in working memory

Counting on working memory in arithmetic problem solving

Executive Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease

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