ABSTRACT

We explored the efficacy of drawing pictures as an encoding strategy to enhance memory performance in healthy older adults and individuals with probable dementia. In an incidental encoding phase, participants were asked to either draw a picture or write out each word from a set of 30 common nouns for 40 seconds each. Episodic memory for the target words was compared in a group of healthy older adults to individuals with probable dementia (MMSE/MOCA range 4 to 25). In two experiments we showed that recall and recognition performance was higher for words that were drawn than written out during encoding, for both participant groups. We suggest that incorporating visuo-perceptual information into memory enhanced performance by increasing reliance on visual-sensory brain regions, which are relatively intact in these populations. Our findings demonstrate that drawing is a valuable technique leading to measurable gains in memory performance for individuals with probable dementia.

摘要

我们探索了绘画作为一种编码策略的功效，以提高健康老年人和可能患有痴呆症的人的记忆力。在附带的编码阶段，参与者被要求从一组 30 个常用名词中画一幅画或写出每个单词，每个单词持续 40 秒。在一组健康的老年人和可能患有痴呆症的人（MMSE/MOCA 范围 4 到 25）中比较了目标词的情景记忆。在两个实验中，我们表明，对于两个参与者组，在编码期间绘制的单词的回忆和识别性能高于写出的单词。我们建议将视觉感知信息纳入记忆，通过增加对视觉感官大脑区域的依赖来增强性能，这些区域在这些人群中相对完整。