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Abstract:
Previous research has found that patients with Alzheimer's
disease (AD) show lower levels of false recognition of semantic
associates to novel "lure" items than do healthy elderly adults,
after correcting for unrelated false alarms. We have found similar
results with perceptually related novel objects. In the analysis of
the uncorrected data for both semantic and perceptual paradigms,
however, AD patients and older adults made similar numbers of "old"
responses to lure items. Using a paradigm in which semantically
related words are accompanied by line drawings, we recently found
that compared to older adults AD patients showed a trend toward
greater numbers of "old" responses to lure items. To explore this
trend, we examined false recognition in AD patients and older
adults using categorized pictures (e.g., flowers, motorcycles,
dinosaurs, etc.). We found that compared to older adults, AD
patients made significantly greater "old" responses to lure items
but exhibited lower levels of false recognition after correcting
for unrelated false alarms. Additionally, AD patients showed higher
levels of true versus false recognition. These results suggest that
while pictures may allow AD patients to improve their memory of the
studied items, they may also be more likely to respond "old"
whenever they see a picture, studied or unstudied.
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