ABSTRACT

Imagining an event from a personal perspective has been found to be able to enhance memory for words and sentences for healthy younger adults and brain-injured patients. However, little is known about how people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) respond to self-imagination, in comparison to healthy older adults. In the current study, participants were asked to process a group of objects using either a self-imagination approach or a baseline strategy in which the self was not heavily involved. Self-imagination shows a mnemonic advantage over the control strategy, though this pattern emerged more clearly for healthy older adults. Furthermore, suggestive evidence indicates that cognitive ability supports self-reference benefits for healthy older adults, but not aMCI patients. These findings extended previous research to reveal the effectiveness of self-imagination for older adults using pictorial stimuli and supported the viewpoint that aMCI could qualitatively change the way that cognitive resources are engaged.

摘要

从个人的角度想象一个事件能够增强健康的年轻成年人和脑损伤患者的单词和句子记忆。然而，与健壮的成年人相比，关于记忆轻度认知障碍（aMCI）的人对自我想象的反应知之甚少。在当前的研究中，要求参与者使用自我想象方法或不大量参与自我的基线策略来处理一组对象。自我想象显示出优于控制策略的助记符优势，尽管这种模式对于健康的老年人更为明显。此外，有力的证据表明，认知能力支持健康老年人的自我参考益处，但不支持aMCI患者。