Measuring Recollection and Familiarity in Ageing and Mild Cognitive Impairment

这项研究是关于什么的？记忆对生活的许多方面都很重要。它帮助我们保持自我意识，与他人回忆有助于维持社会关系，回忆过去我们是如何做事的有助于指导未来的行为。然而，我们以这些方式使用记忆的能力取决于我们如何能够从记忆中检索信息。研究一致认为，记忆有两个过程：回忆——一个类似回忆的过程，当某物或某个人被认出来时，脑海中会浮现出之前在哪里遇到过这个人或某件事的其他想法、图像或联想；熟悉度-当某物被识别为熟悉但没有检索到其他信息时。当认知能力随着年龄的增长和痴呆而下降时，受到损害的主要过程是回忆，但关于熟悉过程如何随着年龄的增长而变化的研究并没有得出一致的结果。我是一名心理学家，对这些记忆过程和认知能力下降时它们是如何工作的特别感兴趣。这项研究将比较最近在不同人群中发展起来的回忆和熟悉度的测量方法：年轻人、老年人和轻度认知障碍（MCI）患者。目标是开发一种敏感的记忆损伤测量方法，以帮助早期诊断痴呆症。为什么这很重要？老龄人口的福祉是社会科学的一个重要问题。目前，英国每年因痴呆症花费超过260亿英镑，随着人口老龄化的加剧，预计到2025年，英国将有超过100万人患有痴呆症。虽然随着年龄的增长，一些记忆丧失是意料之中的，但痴呆症患者所经历的记忆问题会严重影响患者的健康，并给家庭、夫妻和照顾者带来情感上的损失。然而，如果在早期阶段诊断出痴呆症，可以做很多事情来帮助人们克服问题并提高生活质量。因此，至关重要的是要更好地了解痴呆症早期阶段受损的特定记忆过程，并利用这一知识为改善福祉的护理途径提供信息。这项研究将如何组织？项目一：如何最好地衡量回忆和熟悉度。该项目将比较最近开发的、理论驱动的、针对年轻人的这些过程的不同测量方法，以确定哪种方法最敏感、最可靠。这将使在项目2和3中使用最好的方法成为可能。项目2：回忆和熟悉过程在正常衰老过程中是如何变化的。这个项目将使用从项目1中获得的最佳方法来比较年轻人和老年人的记忆。这将使这些方法能够进一步完善，以便适合老年人使用。项目3：轻度认知障碍患者的回忆和熟悉度是如何受损的。轻度认知障碍是痴呆症的临床前阶段，在这个阶段，认知障碍比年龄和教育水平预期的要严重。这个项目将比较健康老年人和轻度认知障碍患者的记忆和熟悉程度。这将有助于我们了解痴呆症早期阶段特有的记忆障碍的特定模式，并有助于进一步完善临床应用的方法。这项研究将产生什么影响？这项研究的主要影响将是增加对早期痴呆症中记忆如何受损的理解。研究结果将与研究和提供痴呆症心理治疗的学者和临床医生分享，目的是申请进一步的合作资助，以在临床环境中测试和验证这项研究的结果。这项研究也将用于向公众推广社会科学研究。调查结果将在公众参与活动和项目网站上公布。

What is this research about?Memory is important for many aspects of life. It helps maintain our sense of who we are, reminiscing with others helps maintain social relationships, and recalling how we did things in the past helps direct future behaviour. However, our ability to use our memories in these ways depends on how we are able to retrieve information from memory. Research agrees that there are two processes in memory: recollection - a recall-like process where when something or someone is recognised other thoughts, images, or associations come to mind about where that person or thing was previously encountered; and familiarity - when something is recognised as being familiar but no other information is retrieved. When cognitive abilities decline in ageing and dementia the primary process to be impaired is recollection, but research on how familiarity processes change in ageing has not produced consistent results. I am a psychologist with particular interest in these memory processes and in understanding how they work when cognitive ability is reduced. This research will compare recently developed measures of recollection and familiarity in different populations: younger adults, older adults, and individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The goal is to develop a sensitive measure of memory impairment for help with early diagnosis of dementia.Why is this important?The well-being of our ageing population is an important issue for the social sciences. Dementia currently costs the UK over £26 billion per year and with the increasing ageing population it is predicted that by 2025 over 1 million people in the UK will be living with dementia. While some memory loss is expected with age, the memory problems experienced in dementia can seriously impact patients' well-being, and take an emotional toll on families, couples, and caregivers. However, if dementia is diagnosed at an early stage, much can be done to help people overcome problems and improve quality of life. It is thus critical to develop a better understanding of the specific memory processes that are impaired in early stages of dementia, and use this knowledge to inform care pathways that will improve well-being. How will this research be organised?Project 1: How best to measure recollection and familiarity. This project will compare different recently developed, theoretically driven, measures of these processes in younger adults to establish which method is the most sensitive and reliable. This will enable the best methodology to be used in Projects 2 and 3.Project 2: How do recollection and familiarity processes change in normal ageing. This project will compare younger and older adults' memory using the best method(s) obtained from Project 1. This will enable the methods to be further refined so that they are suitable for use with older people. Project 3: How are recollection and familiarity impaired in Mild Cognitive Impairment. MCI is a pre-clinical phase of dementia where cognitive impairment is greater than expected for age and education level. This project will compare recollection and familiarity in healthy older people and individuals diagnosed with MCI. This will help us understand the particular patterns of memory impairment that characterise early stages of dementia and will help refine the methodology further for use in clinical settings. What impact will this research have?The main impact of this research will be increased understanding of how memory is impaired in early dementia. Results will be shared with academics and clinicians who research and deliver psychological treatments for dementia with the aim of applying for further collaborative grant funding to test and validate the results of this research in clinical settings. This research will also be used to promote social science research to the general public. The results will be presented at public engagement events and on a project website.