ABSTRACT

Background

Assessment of working memory is fundamental in any evaluation of cognitive abilities. Working memory is crucial in the processing of any linguistic stimuli. Encoding, storing, and manipulating information in working memory are critical for perception as well as cognition. The decline in working memory has been reported in normal as well as pathological aging.

Aims

The present study aimed to assess working memory capacity using a paradigm within E-Prime software and study its effect on linguistic processing ability in adults with and without dementia using the n-back task.

Methods and Procedures

A standard group comparison was carried out across 10 neurotypical individuals and 7 individuals with dementia. A working memory task (n-back) was employed and the effect of various semantic stimuli categories on working memory was identified.

Outcome and Results

The findings of this study revealed that individuals with dementia significantly differ in their working memory capacity when compared to neurotypical individuals. Poor working memory capacity could be due to the impaired ability to access semantic information of their linguistic ability and slow processing speed. Differences were also found concerning the processing of various semantic stimuli categories within both the study groups. Increased reaction time with poor working memory threshold was observed objectively in individuals with dementia compared to neruotypicals. The differences in terms of reaction time are attributed to the varied processing load put forth by different semantic stimuli within the working memory and to some extrinsic factors such as familiarity with the stimulus.

Conclusions

The study evidences the importance of objective working memory assessment in differentiating individuals with dementia and neurotypical individuals.

中文翻译：

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使用 n-back 任务研究痴呆症患者的不同语义处理能力

摘要

背景

工作记忆的评估是任何认知能力评估的基础。工作记忆对于处理任何语言刺激都至关重要。在工作记忆中编码、存储和操纵信息对于感知和认知都至关重要。据报道，在正常和病理性衰老中工作记忆力下降。

目标

本研究旨在使用 E-Prime 软件中的范例评估工作记忆能力，并使用 n-back 任务研究其对患有和不患有痴呆症的成年人的语言处理能力的影响。

方法和程序

对 10 名神经典型个体和 7 名痴呆患者进行了标准组比较。采用了工作记忆任务（n-back），并确定了各种语义刺激类别对工作记忆的影响。

结果和结果

这项研究的结果表明，与神经典型个体相比，患有痴呆症的个体的工作记忆能力存在显着差异。工作记忆能力差可能是由于他们的语言能力和处理速度较慢访问语义信息的能力受损。两个研究组内对各种语义刺激类别的处理也存在差异。与神经型患者相比，在痴呆症患者中客观地观察到反应时间增加和工作记忆阈值差。反应时间方面的差异归因于工作记忆中不同语义刺激产生的不同处理负荷以及一些外在因素，例如对刺激的熟悉程度。

结论

该研究证明了客观工作记忆评估在区分痴呆症患者和神经典型个体中的重要性。