THE DECLINE OF WORKING MEMORY IN ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY
THE DECLINE OF WORKING MEMORY IN ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY
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DOI：
10.1093/brain/114.6.2521
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发表时间：
1991-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
14.5
通讯作者：
SPINNLER, H
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
BADDELEY, AD;BRESSI, S;SPINNLER, H
先前的研究（Baddeley等人，1986）探索了患有阿尔茨海默型痴呆（AD）的患者在工作记忆的中央执行成分的功能方面特别受损的假设。结果表明，当患者被要求同时执行2个并发任务时，AD患者特别受损。即使当个体任务的表现水平等同于年龄匹配的对照时。虽然结果是明确的，解释仍然复杂的两个问题：第一，在AD和对照患者之间的单独测试的性能的可比性问题;其次，我们的研究结果是否可以简单地解释为有限的一般处理能力被更困难的双重任务比单独执行的单个任务更繁重的问题。本研究跟踪了AD，6个月和12个月后的对照组患者。我们能够通过使用患者作为他们自己的对照来考虑性能的可比性问题。在这种条件下。在保持单一任务表现的同时，双重任务表现有非常明显的恶化趋势。第二个实验在一个单一的任务中，患者和对照组被要求归类为属于1，2或4个语义类别的单词不同的难度。类别的数量对业绩有明显的影响，业绩随着时间的推移出现系统性下降。然而，没有任务难度之间的相互作用，作为衡量的替代品和恶化率的数量，这表明AD患者表现出的性能进行性恶化是一个功能，无论是单或双任务的性能是必需的，并不依赖于简单的任务难度水平。工作记忆的中央执行组件的分析的影响进行了讨论。
A previous study (Baddeley et al., 1986) explored the hypothesis that patients suffering from dementia of the Alzheimer type (AD) are particularly impaired in the functioning of the central executive component of working memory. It showed that, when patients are required to perform 2 concurrent tasks simultaneously, the AD patients are particularly impaired. even when level of performance on the individual tasks is equated with that of age-matched controls. Although the results were clear, interpretation was still complicated by 2 issues: first, the question of comparability of performance on the separate tests between AD and control patients; secondly, the question of whether our results could be interpreted simply in terms of a limited general processing capacity being more taxed by more difficult dual tasks than by the individual tasks performed alone.The present study followed up the AD and control patients after 6 and 12 mths. We were able to allow for the problem of comparability of performance by using patients as their own control. Under these conditions. there is a very clear tendency for dual task performance to deteriorate while single task performance is maintained. A second experiment varied difficulty within a single task in which patients and controls were required to categorize words as belonging to 1, 2 or 4 semantic categories. There was a clear effect of number of categories on performance and a systematic decline in performance over time. There was, however, no interaction between task difficulty as measured by number of alternatives and rate of deterioration, suggesting that the progressive deterioration in performance shown by AD patients is a function of whether single or dual task performance is required, and is not dependent on simple level of task difficulty.Implications for the analysis of the central executive component of working memory are discussed.