Self-reference effect on memory in healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: Influence of identity valence

Abstract

The self-reference effect (SRE) has been shown to benefit episodic memory in healthy individuals. In healthy aging, its preservation is acknowledged, but in Alzheimer's disease (AD), the jury is still out. Furthermore, there has yet to be a study of the SRE in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). As self-reference implies subjective self-representations, and positive information enhance memory performance, we set out to examine the effects of 1) material and 2) identity valence on the SRE across the early stages of AD. Twenty healthy older individuals and 40 patients (20 diagnosed with aMCI and 20 diagnosed with mild AD) performed a memory task. Participants had to judge positive and negative personality trait adjectives with reference to themselves or to another person, or else process these adjectives semantically. We then administered a recognition task. Participants also completed a questionnaire on identity valence. Among healthy older individuals, the SRE benefited episodic memory independently of material and identity valence. By contrast, among aMCI patients, we only observed the SRE when the material was positive. When self-referential material was negative, patients' performance depended on the valence of their self-representations: negative self-representations correlated with poor recognition of negative self-referential adjectives. Finally, performance of patients with mild AD by condition and material valence were too low and inappropriate to be subjected to relevant analyses. The persistence of an SRE for positive adjectives in aMCI suggests the existence of a positivity effect for self-related information, which contributes to wellbeing. The absence of an SRE for negative adjectives, which led aMCI patients to dismiss negative self-related information, could be due to low self-esteem. These results corroborate the mnenic neglect model and point out the importance of the psychoaffective dimension in patients with aMCI, which could constitute a major factor for the preservation of their self-esteem and self-related memory.

The self-reference effect in dementia: Differential involvement of cortical midline structures in Alzheimer's disease and behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia

“…The absence of SRE in our AD group corroborates results from previous reports of attenuated SRE and SRRE in AD (Genon et al, 2014a; Leblond et al, 2016), but extend these findings by using a source memory experimental design, showing neither item nor source memory enhancement. While a number of existing studies have demonstrated significant SRE and SRRE in AD (Kalenzaga & Clarys, 2013; Kalenzaga et al, 2013; Lalanne et al, 2013), the apparent disparity in results may be related to differences in methodological approaches.…”

“…Likewise, the relationship between the SRE and alterations in concept of self represents an important area of future enquiry, especially considering the marked changes to personality and interpersonal conduct in bvFTD (Piguet et al, 2011). While previous studies in AD have used self-rated measures of identity valence and certainty (Lalanne et al, 2013; Leblond et al, 2016), inclusion of measures that allow comparison between self and informant responses is necessary, as loss of insight is a prominent clinical characteristic in bvFTD (Piguet et al, 2011). Furthermore, given that we employed a region-of-interest approach in our VBM analyses, we could not exclude the possibility that atrophy of regions beyond the CMS may have also contributed to the reduced SRE in bvFTD and AD.…”

“…Most existing studies have evaluated the self-reference recollection effect (SRRE) in AD using the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm, where ‘remember’ responses are presumed to involve episodic memory, with conscious recollection of contextual details, as opposed to ‘know’ responses, which reflect a ‘feeling of knowing’ without recollection (Tulving, 1985; 2002). While three studies in AD patients have demonstrated higher rates of ‘remember’ responses for self-referenced trait adjectives (Kalenzaga & Clarys, 2013; Kalenzaga, Bugaïska, & Clarys, 2013; Lalanne, Rozenberg, Grolleau, & Piolino, 2013), others have found no SRE for item recognition (Leblond et al, 2016) or both reduced SRE and SRRE (Genon et al, 2014a). Nonetheless, the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm does not control for the variability of remembered contextual details for each item within and between participants.…”

Self-Reference Effect and Self-Reference Recollection Effect for Trait Adjectives in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…To date, there have been very few studies of the SRE in aMCI. Rosa, Deason, Budson, and Gutchess (2015) found no SRE for trait adjectives in aMCI, whereas a study by Leblond et al (2016) found a SRE in aMCI that was specific to positively valenced trait adjectives. Another study by Rosa, Deason, Budson, and Gutchess (2016), indicated that individuals with aMCI did not show a benefit to source memory for selfreferenced items, although they did show overall better memory for items that were learned through self-related processing.…”

“…These authors showed that encoding information in relation to the self involved "deeper" processing than other encoding manipulations (such as those based on semantic knowledge or identification of surface details) and promoted episodic memory to a greater extent than other ways of encoding. Studies of the SRE have since been primarily conducted in young adults, but more recently the effect has been shown for trait adjectives in healthy aging (Carson, Murphy, Moscovitch, & Rosenbaum, 2016;Genon et al, 2014;Glisky & Marquine, 2009;Gutchess, Kensinger, Yoon, & Schacter, 2007;Lalanne, Rozenberg, Grolleau, & Piolino, 2013;Leblond et al, 2016). Given that healthy cognitive aging is associated with a decline in episodic memory, these results are encouraging.…”