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Neuropsychology, Development, and... Nov 2022Temporal and semantic associative processes during the acquisition of new verbal information undergo various changes across the life span. Temporal order clusters and...
Temporal and semantic associative processes during the acquisition of new verbal information undergo various changes across the life span. Temporal order clusters and subjective clusters were monitored during verbal learning trials using the Rey (Auditory Verbal Learning Task) for 1471 participants aged 8-91. Pairs, three-word, and four-word clusters were measured. Subjective clusters were generated at similar frequency across the whole life span. By contrast, a clear inverted-U curve across life span was indicated for temporal clusters. More words were subjectively clustered than clustered by temporal presentation order. The number of words clustered increased across trials, and cluster types showed a different increase profile across trials. The subjective cluster increment was faster and steeper than the temporal cluster increment in most of the age segments. Life span trajectory tendencies in the formation of temporal and semantic associations in recall were interpreted in relation to different frameworks of cognitive life span changes.
Topics: Humans; Longevity; Verbal Learning; Mental Recall; Semantics
PubMed: 34402748
DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2021.1946472 -
Journal of the International... Apr 2017Verbal memory (VM) impairment is prominent in bipolar disorder (BD) and is linked to functional outcomes. However, the intricacies of VM impairment have not yet been...
BACKGROUND
Verbal memory (VM) impairment is prominent in bipolar disorder (BD) and is linked to functional outcomes. However, the intricacies of VM impairment have not yet been studied in a large sample of BD patients. Moreover, some have proposed VM deficits that may be mediated by organizational strategies, such as semantic or serial clustering. Thus, the exact nature of VM break-down in BD patients is not well understood, limiting remediation efforts. We investigated the intricacies of VM deficits in BD patients versus healthy controls (HCs) and examined whether verbal learning differences were mediated by use of clustering strategies.
METHODS
The California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) was administered to 113 affectively stable BD patients and 106 HCs. We compared diagnostic groups on all CVLT indices and investigated whether group differences in verbal learning were mediated by clustering strategies.
RESULTS
Although BD patients showed significantly poorer attention, learning, and memory, these indices were only mildly impaired. However, BD patients evidenced poorer use of effective learning strategies and lower recall consistency, with these indices falling in the moderately impaired range. Moreover, relative reliance on semantic clustering fully mediated the relationship between diagnostic category and verbal learning, while reliance on serial clustering partially mediated this relationship.
CONCLUSIONS
VM deficits in affectively stable bipolar patients were widespread but were generally mildly impaired. However, patients displayed inadequate use of organizational strategies with clear separation from HCs on semantic and serial clustering. Remediation efforts may benefit from education about mnemonic devices or "chunking" techniques to attenuate VM deficits in BD. (JINS, 2017, 23, 358-366).
Topics: Adult; Bipolar Disorder; Female; Humans; Male; Memory Disorders; Middle Aged; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 28382899
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617717000133 -
Applied Neuropsychology. Child 2015Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited myogenic disorder characterized by progressive muscle wasting. DMD is a fatal X-linked recessive disorder with an...
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited myogenic disorder characterized by progressive muscle wasting. DMD is a fatal X-linked recessive disorder with an estimated prevalence of 1 in 3,500 male live births. This disease has long been associated with intellectual impairment. Research has shown that boys with DMD have variable intellectual performance, indicating the presence of specific cognitive deficits. The aim of the study was to use a battery of intelligence, learning, and memory tests to identify a neuropsychological profile in boys with DMD. A total of 22 boys diagnosed with DMD in the age range of 6 to 10 years old were evaluated using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition, Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test, and the Memory for Designs Test. The data were interpreted using means, standard deviations, percentages, and percentiles. Normative data were also used for further interpretation. The results showed that boys with DMD had a significantly lower IQ (88.5). Verbal IQ (86.59) was found to be lower than Performance IQ (92.64). There was evidence of impaired performance on the Processing Speed, Freedom From Distractibility, and Verbal Comprehension Indexes. Specific deficits in information processing, complex attention, immediate verbal memory span, verbal working memory, verbal comprehension, vocabulary, visuoconstruction ability, and verbal learning and encoding were observed. However, perceptional organization, general fund of information, abstract reasoning, visual discrimination and acuity, visual learning and memory, and verbal memory were adequate. The neuropsychological findings support the hypothesis that these children have specific cognitive deficits as opposed to a global intellectual deficit.
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Humans; Intelligence; Male; Memory; Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne; Neuropsychological Tests; Verbal Learning; Wechsler Scales
PubMed: 24279481
DOI: 10.1080/21622965.2013.802649 -
The Clinical Neuropsychologist Jul 2020Previous meta-analyses have demonstrated verbal working memory (WM) dysfunction in children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD);... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
Previous meta-analyses have demonstrated verbal working memory (WM) dysfunction in children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, the findings are inconsistent. The main objective of this meta-analysis was to investigate the performance of children and adolescents with ADHD in the Digit Span Backwards (DSB) subtest from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. We also sought to provide an updated meta-analysis on WM in children and adolescents with ADHD. PubMed, PsyINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched to locate studies published between 1990 and 2016 that report DSB scores both of children and adolescents with ADHD and matched controls. Potential moderator variables were also analyzed. Forty-nine studies comparing children and adolescents with ADHD ( = 4956) against healthy controls ( = 3249) generated a medium-sized effect (Hedges' ) of 0.56 (95% CI [0.49, 0.64]), indicating poorer verbal WM performance in those with ADHD. A subgroup meta-analysis of studies with participants aged 8-16 years only demonstrated low heterogeneity ( = 17.06, cf. 55.50 for the main analysis). Moreover, the meta-regression showed a negative association ( = -.05, = .02) between DSB performance differences and increasing age, indicating that for every one year increase in age the effect size decreased by .05. These results, which emanated from the largest meta-analysis concerning verbal WM in ADHD reported to date, reinforce WM as a key domain of cognitive dysfunction in ADHD, and point to age as the main variable influencing DSB performance difficulties.
Topics: Adolescent; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity; Case-Control Studies; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Neuropsychological Tests; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 31007130
DOI: 10.1080/13854046.2019.1604998 -
Applied Neuropsychology. Adult 2018The present study aimed to: (a) examine verbal learning performances among forensic inpatients diagnosed with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder (SSD); and (b) compare...
The present study aimed to: (a) examine verbal learning performances among forensic inpatients diagnosed with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder (SSD); and (b) compare verbal learning performances among forensic SSD inpatients, SSD outpatients, and a small control sample. Participants included forensic SSD inpatients (n = 71), SSD outpatients (n = 305; see Stone et al.), and a control sample from the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) manual (n = 78; see Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober). Five verbal learning outcomes were measured using the CVLT-II. The average forensic SSD inpatients performed 1 to 1.5 standard deviations below the mean across the five verbal learning outcomes, many of whom (26.8% to 36.6%) performed in the impaired range across the five outcomes. Forensic SSD inpatients performed significantly lower than the SSD outpatients on three verbal learning outcomes and significantly lower than healthy controls on all five verbal learning outcomes. Results indicated forensically committed SSD inpatients have diminished verbal learning performances. Study findings could help define normative verbal learning performances in different types of SSD patients, may guide the development of compensatory strategies for verbal learning deficits, and could subsequently lead to more successful clinical outcomes in this population.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Criminals; Hospitals, Psychiatric; Humans; Inpatients; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Outpatients; Schizophrenia; Verbal Learning; Young Adult
PubMed: 28071963
DOI: 10.1080/23279095.2016.1269010 -
Neurosurgery Mar 2022The effects of brain stimulation on memory formation in humans have shown conflicting results in previous studies. We hypothesized that direct cortical stimulation using...
BACKGROUND
The effects of brain stimulation on memory formation in humans have shown conflicting results in previous studies. We hypothesized that direct cortical stimulation using an implanted responsive neurostimulation (RNS) system will improve memory.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether direct cortical stimulation using RNS improves memory as measured with recall scores of a list-learning task.
METHODS
During outpatient visits, a list-learning task (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised) was administered to 17 patients with RNS implants. Patients were read a list of 12 semantically related words and asked to recall the list after 3 different learning trials. True or sham stimulations were performed for every third word presented for immediate recall. Most patients had frontotemporal network stimulation-one patient each had insular and parietal stimulations. After a 20-min delay, they were asked to recall the list again, first freely and then through a "yes/no" recognition paradigm. A crossover design was used in which half the patients had true stimulation during the initial visit and half had sham stimulation-followed by crossover to the other group at the next visit.
RESULTS
The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised delayed recall raw score was higher for the stimulation condition compared with the nonstimulation condition (paired t -test, P = .04, effect size d = 0.627).
CONCLUSION
Verbal memory improves by direct cortical stimulation during a list-learning task. The RNS system can be effectively used in memory research using direct cortical stimulation. This study has implications in the development of neurostimulation devices for cognitive enhancement in conditions such as epilepsy, dementia, and traumatic brain injury.
Topics: Brain; Case-Control Studies; Cross-Over Studies; Humans; Memory; Neuropsychological Tests; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 35045053
DOI: 10.1227/NEU.0000000000001818 -
PloS One 2019Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn... (Clinical Trial)
Clinical Trial
Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children's and adults' word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., "Look, a Tanu") and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants' target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development.
Topics: Adult; Association Learning; Child, Preschool; Comprehension; Female; Humans; Infant; Language Development; Male; Speech Perception; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 31393901
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220317 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Jul 2022Despite humans' ability to communicate about concepts relating to different senses, word learning research tends to largely focus on labeling visual objects. Although...
Despite humans' ability to communicate about concepts relating to different senses, word learning research tends to largely focus on labeling visual objects. Although sensory modality is known to influence memory and learning, its specific role for word learning remains largely unclear. We investigated associative word learning in adults, that is the association of an object with its label, by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We evaluated how learning is affected by object modality (auditory vs visual) and temporal synchrony of object-label presentations (sequential vs simultaneous). Across 4 experiments, adults were, in training phases, presented either visual objects (real-world images) or auditory objects (environmental sounds) in temporal synchrony with or followed by novel pseudowords (2 × 2 design). Objects and pseudowords were paired either in a consistent or an inconsistent manner. In subsequent testing phases, the consistent pairs were presented in matching or violated pairings. Here, behavioral and ERP responses should reveal whether consistent object-pseudoword pairs had been successfully associated with one another during training. The visual-object experiments yielded behavioral learning effects and an increased N400 amplitude for violated versus matched pairings indicating short-term retention of object-word associations, in both the simultaneous and sequential presentation conditions. For the auditory-object experiments, only the simultaneous, but not the sequential presentation, revealed similar results. Across all experiments, we found behavioral and ERP correlates of associative word learning to be affected by both sensory modality and partly, by temporal synchrony of object-label combinations. Based on our findings, we argue for independent advantages of temporal synchrony and visual modality in associative word learning.
Topics: Adult; Conditioning, Classical; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Female; Humans; Learning; Male; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 35504050
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.03.020 -
Memory (Hove, England) Apr 2018One of the earliest signs of dementia is memory issues and verbal word lists, such as the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), are successfully used for screening. To...
One of the earliest signs of dementia is memory issues and verbal word lists, such as the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), are successfully used for screening. To gain insight in how memory is affected in dementia, and to further improve the efficacy of the HVLT, in-depth analysis of the recall patterns of dementia cases and controls was conducted. Dementia cases and controls were matched for factors that can affect performance, such as age, gender and education level. Word frequency, syllable length, and orthographic neighbourhood size did not differ in the Indonesian version of the HVLT, nor did these characteristics affect recall. However dementia cases showed consistent and poor recall across the three trials; with the worst recall for the "human shelter" category and best recall for the "animals" category. Dementia cases also showed impaired accessibility of all categories with reduced subsequent recall from accessed categories and reduced primacy and recency levels. Finally, dementia cases exhibited lower levels of re-remembering and recalling new words, and higher levels of immediate forgetting and never recalling words. It was concluded that utilising the extra information provided by the in-depth analyses of the recall patterns could be beneficial to improve dementia screening.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Dementia; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Recall; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 28693360
DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2017.1349804 -
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Dec 2020Neurocognitive deficits are associated with impaired global functioning and psychotic symptoms. However, whether symptoms can mediate the relationship between...
Neurocognitive deficits are associated with impaired global functioning and psychotic symptoms. However, whether symptoms can mediate the relationship between neurocognition and global functioning in adolescent psychosis is unclear. Here, we investigated if symptoms assessed with the Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), mediated the relationship between neurocognitive performance and global functioning in adolescents with non-affective early-onset psychotic disorders (EOP). Sixty-one adolescent EOP patients (age 12-18 years) from 2 Norwegian clinical cohorts were included. Linear regression models were applied to investigate associations between neurocognitive domains from the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and global functioning. PANSS symptoms were analyzed using the Wallwork/Fortgang five-factor model. Using the INDIRECT macro for SPSS, mediation effects were tested using bootstrapping with 95% bias corrected confidence intervals. Verbal learning was positively associated with global functioning (P < 0.001) and negatively associated with the disorganized symptom factor (P = 0.002), controlling for age, sex and cohort. Testing of indirect effects, controlling for age, sex and cohort, showed that the Negative (point estimate = 1.56, 95% CI 0.22, 3.47) and Disorganized (point estimate = 1.24, 95% CI 0.05, 3.69) symptom factors significantly mediated the relationship between verbal learning and global functioning. We found that verbal learning, negative and disorganized symptoms influenced global functioning in adolescents with EOP, while reality-distorted positive symptoms did not. These results suggest that assessing these domains in EOP is helpful for planning treatment and rehabilitation programs focusing on functional outcome.
Topics: Adolescent; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychotic Disorders; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 32036438
DOI: 10.1007/s00787-020-01479-7