Autobiographical Memory in Normal Ageing and Dementia
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3037.1991.972419.pdf
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Author(s)
Sagar, Harvey J.
Sullivan, Edith V.
Corkin, Suzanne Hammond
Date Issued
1991
Journal
Behavioural Neurology
Publisher
IOS Press
Citation
Sagar, Harvey J., Edith V. Sullivan, and Suzanne Corkin, “Autobiographical Memory in Normal Ageing and Dementia,” Behavioural Neurology, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 235-248, 1991. © 1991 Rapid Communications of Oxford Ltd
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Autobiographical memories in young and elderly normal subjects are drawn mostly from the recent past but elderly subjects relate a second peak of memories from early adulthood. Memory for remote past public events is relatively preserved in dementia, possibly reflecting integrity of semantic relative to episodic memory. We examined recall of specific, consistent autobiographical episodes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) in response to cue words. Patients and control subjects drew most memories from the recent 20 years: episode age related to anterograde memory function but not subject age or dementia. Subjects also related a secondary peak of memories from early adulthood; episode age related to subject age and severity of dementia. The results suggest that preferential recall of memories from early adulthood is based on the salience of retrieval cues, altered by age and dementia, superimposed on a temporal gradient of semantic memory. Further, AD shows behavioural similarity to normal ageing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3233/BEN-1991-4403
