ENCODING AND REMEMBERING EVENTS ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

编码并记住一生中的事件

基本信息

批准号：
8092618
负责人：
Jeffrey M Zacks
金额：
$ 29.65万
依托单位：
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2008
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2008-08-01 至 2013-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Older adults arrive in the neurological clinic with a variety of complaints about their changing cognitive profile. These include reduced interest in hobbies and activities, repeating stories and statements, trouble learning how to use new tools and appliances, difficulty keeping track of what day it is, and difficulty remembering appointments. Such complaints have a striking feature in common: They all appear to be related to one's mental representation of "what is happening now." Recent research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience has begun to explain how people construct such representations and update them to facilitate perception and memory. This research suggests that the segmentation of ongoing activity into meaningful events is crucial to later memory for those events. However, little is known about how these mechanisms change with aging and dementia. The specific aims of this research address this lacuna: Specific Aim 1: Identify cognitive mechanisms of effective event segmentation. What distinguishes those individuals who segment events effectively from those who do not? Does this change across the lifespan? The proposed research will address these questions using psychometric and functional and structural neuroimaging methods. Specific Aim 2: Assess the contribution of effective event segmentation to memory in older adults. In younger adults event segmentation is associated with updating the current contents of short-term memory and with long-term memory retention. The proposed research will investigate how the relations between event segmentation, online memory updating and long-term memory change with age using behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Specific Aim 3: Test interventions to facilitate effective encoding of events. To the extent that effective event segmentation helps memory, improving event segmentation may improve memory. The proposed research will test interventions intended to improve memory by facilitating effective event segmentation. This research proposed here is all based on tasks in which observers comprehend and remember movies and stories that are closer to real-life activity than typical laboratory materials. The tasks are not too different from everyday comprehension of ongoing activities and conversations. These features improve the chances that this approach to event perception and memory may generalize to the memory complaints common to older adults. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Declines in memory for everyday events are one of the common complaints of aging. Recent research with younger adults suggests that "chunking" ongoing activity into meaningful events is important for later memory. The proposed research investigates how the mind and brain do this chunking, how it changes as people age, and what interventions might improve its effectiveness.

描述（由申请人提供）：老年人到达神经诊所，并对他们的认知能力变化有多种抱怨。这些包括减少对爱好和活动的兴趣，重复故事和陈述，学习如何使用新工具和设备，难以跟踪当天的一天以及难以记住约会。这样的抱怨具有一个惊人的特征：它们似乎都与“现在正在发生的事情”的心理表现有关。认知心理学和神经科学方面的最新研究已经开始解释人们如何构建这种表示并更新它们以促进感知和记忆。这项研究表明，将正在进行的活动分割为有意义的事件，对于这些事件的后期记忆至关重要。但是，对于这些机制如何随衰老和痴呆症的变化而言，知之甚少。这项研究的具体目的解决了这一问题：具体目的1：确定有效事件分割的认知机制。那些有效分割事件与不进行的人的个人有什么区别？这在整个寿命中会发生变化吗？拟议的研究将使用心理测量和功能和结构神经影像学方法来解决这些问题。具体目标2：评估有效事件分割对老年人记忆的贡献。在年轻人中，事件分割与更新短期记忆的当前内容和长期记忆保留有关。拟议的研究将研究事件细分，在线记忆更新和长期记忆之间的关系如何随着行为和神经影像学方法而随年龄变化。特定目的3：测试干预措施以促进有效的事件编码。在有效的事件细分有助于内存的范围内，改进事件分割可以改善内存。拟议的研究将测试旨在通过促进有效的事件细分来改善记忆力的干预措施。这里提出的这项研究都是基于任务，在这些任务中，观察者理解并记住与现实生活中的电影和故事相比，与典型的实验室材料更接近现实生活。这些任务与对正在进行的活动和对话的日常理解没有太大不同。这些功能可以提高这种事件感知和记忆方法可能会推广到老年人常见的记忆投诉的机会。公共卫生相关性：日常事件记忆的下降是衰老的常见抱怨之一。与年轻人的最新研究表明，将持续的活动“分块”为有意义的事件对于以后的记忆很重要。拟议的研究调查了思想和大脑如何进行这种大块，随着年龄的增长以及哪些干预措施的变化可能会提高其有效性。