Combined Memory Training: An Approach for Episodic Memory Deficits in Traumatic Brain Injury.

Purpose The study aimed to test a combination of semantic memory and traditional episodic memory therapies on episodic memory deficits in adults with traumatic brain injury. Method Twenty-five participants who had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and had episodic memory deficits were randomly assigned either to a combined memory treatment group ( = 16) or to a wait-list control group ( = 9). Before and after treatment, they completed standardized neuropsychological testing for episodic memory and related cognitive domains, including the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition, the Controlled Oral Word Association Test, the University of Southern California Repeatable Episodic Memory Test, the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-Second Edition Matrices, the Test of Everyday Attention, the Memory Assessment Clinics Self-Rating Scale, the Expressive Vocabulary Test-Second Edition, and the Story Recall subtest from the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test.

Multi-Trial Episodic Recall and Recognition of Emotion-Laden Words in First Versus Second Language.

Monolingual studies contrasting memory for positive versus negative emotion-laden words have generally used single-trial paradigms and have produced inconsistent results (no difference or an advantage for either positive or negative valence). However, monolingual studies with multiple presentations of stimuli have consistently found a positivity advantage in recall. No bilingual study has examined whether L2 testing, using a multi-trial procedure, will also produce a positivity advantage.

Effects of Hormone Therapy on List and Story Recall in Post-Menopausal Women.

Unlabelled: Background/Study Context: A number of longitudinal randomized controlled trials (LRCT) have used free verbal recall tests to study the effects of post-menopausal estrogen hormone therapy (HT) on episodic memory, but none have explicitly explored contrasts between list and story recall, in spite of cognitive differences between the tasks. For example, list recall provides little support for the use of gist, while story recall emphasizes it, and there is evidence that estrogen produces gist bias. Moreover, we present a literature tabulation that also suggests a task-specific HT effect.

Repetition priming of words and nonwords in Alzheimer's disease and normal aging.

Objective: This study examines the magnitude and direction of nonword and word lexical decision repetition priming effects in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal aging, focusing specifically on the negative priming effect sometimes observed with repeated nonwords.

Method: Probable AD patients (30), elderly normal controls (34), and young normal controls (49) participated in a repetition priming experiment using low-frequency words and word-like nonwords with a letter-level orthographic orienting task at study followed by a lexical decision test phase.

Results: Although participants' reaction times (RTs) were longer in AD compared with elderly normal, and elderly normal compared with young normal, the repetition priming effect and the degree to which the repetition priming effect was reversed for nonwords compared to words was unaffected by AD or normal aging.

Odor recognition memory: two encoding trials are better than one.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effect of one versus two encoding trials in the classical yes/no recognition memory paradigm using olfactory stimuli. A group of 24 young adults rated 18 standard microencapsulated odorant targets for familiarity (first encoding block) or pleasantness (second encoding block). Once-encoded targets were in only one block and twice-encoded targets were in both, with items counterbalanced across participants.