To what extent does destination recall induce episodic reliving? Evidence from Alzheimer's disease

• Published in: Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 127 - 136
• Main Authors: El Haj, Mohamad, Moroni, Christine, Luyat, Marion, Omigie, Diana, Allain, Philippe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hove Routledge 07-02-2014; Psychology Press; Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; Alzheimer Disease - complications; Alzheimer Disease - physiopathology; Alzheimer's disease; Autonoetic reliving; Biological and medical sciences; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Destination memory; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Memory Disorders - etiology; Memory Disorders - physiopathology; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall - physiology; Neurology; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Source memory; Young Adult; Human; Nervous system diseases; Alzheimer disease; Memory; Cognition; Experimental study; Cerebral disorder; Destination memory; Autonoetic reliving; Information source; Source memory; Central nervous system disease; Degenerative disease; Recall; Episodic memory; Alzheimer's disease
• ISSN: 1380-3395; 1744-411X
• DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2013.869309

We compared destination memory to source memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as the latter type of memory is believed to be severely deteriorated in AD. Control participants and AD patients were tested on two conditions, both of which had a study phase and a recognition phase. In the study phase of the first condition, participants had to tell a set of facts to the faces of a set of celebrities (destination memory). In the study phase of the second condition, they had to receive a different set of facts from a different set of celebrity faces (source memory). During the recognition phase, participants had to indicate, for destination memory, whether they had previously told a given fact to a given face (yes) or not (no) and, for source memory, whether they had previously received a given fact from a given face (yes) or not (no). In both conditions, they were asked to choose between "remember" or "know" options when answering "yes." AD patients showed reliable difficulties in destination recall, accompanied by a significant decrease in the number of "remember" responses they gave. AD-related destination memory decline may be attributed to the perturbation of episodic memory and its autonoetic reliving. The potential neural bases of this decline are discussed in terms of hippocampal failures.