Now you make false memories; now you do not: the order of presentation of words in DRM lists influences the production of the critical lure in Alzheimer’s disease

Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) not only are suffering from amnesia but also are prone to memory distortions, such as experiencing detailed and vivid recollections of episodic events that have never been encountered (i.e., false memories). To describe and explain these distortions, we offer a review to synthesize current knowledge on false memory in AD into a framework allowing for better understanding of the taxonomy and phenomenology of false memories and of the cognitive mechanisms that may underlie false memory formation in AD. According to this review, certain phenomenological characteristics of memories (e.g., high emotional load, high vividness, or high familiarity) result in misattributions in AD. More specifically, this review proposes that generalized decline in cognitive control and inhibition in AD may result in difficulties in suppressing irrelevant information during memory monitoring, especially when irrelevant (i.e., false) information is characterized by high emotion, vividness, or familiarity. This review also proposes that binding deficits in AD decrease the ability to retrieve relevant contextual details, leading to source monitoring errors and false memories. In short, this review depicts how phenomenological characteristics of memories and failures of monitoring during retrieval contribute to the occurrence of false memory in AD.

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False memories in patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia: Can cognitive strategies help?

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology ◽

10.1080/13803395.2018.1513453 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 204-218 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Christopher Malone ◽

Rebecca G. Deason ◽

Rocco Palumbo ◽

Nadine Heyworth ◽

Michelle Tat ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Cognitive Strategies ◽

False Memories ◽

Alzheimer’S Disease Dementia

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Priming older adults and people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease problem-solving with false memories

Cortex ◽

10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 125 ◽

pp. 318-331

Author(s):

Mark L. Howe ◽

Shazia Akhtar

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Problem Solving ◽

False Memories

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Planting a misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in a person's mind

Acta Neuropsychiatrica ◽

10.1111/j.1601-5215.2011.00586.x ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 60-62 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Harald Merckelbach ◽

Marko Jelicic ◽

Cees Jonker

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

False Memories ◽

Diagnostic Error ◽

Autobiographical Memories ◽

Contradictory Evidence

Objective: There is an extensive corpus of knowledge about how misinformation may distort autobiographical memories. A diagnostic error can be conceptualised as a form of misinformation.Methods: The authors discuss the case of a 58-year-old woman who was given a misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.Results: The patient was deeply convinced that the diagnosis was correct, even when she was confronted with contradictory evidence.Conclusion: A diagnosis is not a neutral piece of information. It profoundly affects the lives of patients. The consequences of a misdiagnosis may be similar to persistent false memories.

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The Effectiveness of Item-Specific Encoding and Conservative Responding to Reduce False Memories in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617720000715 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Christopher Malone ◽

Katherine W. Turk ◽

Rocco Palumbo ◽

Andrew E. Budson

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

False Memories ◽

Memory Errors ◽

Neuropsychological Measures ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer’S Disease Dementia

Abstract Objective: Patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia are more susceptible to false memories than healthy older adults. Evidence that these patients can use cognitive strategies to reduce false memory is inconsistent. Method: In the present study, we examined the effectiveness of conservative responding and item-specific deep encoding strategies, alone and in combination, to reduce false memory in a categorized word list paradigm among participants with mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia (AD), amnestic single-domain mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and healthy age-matched older controls (OCs). A battery of clinical neuropsychological measures was also administered. Results: Although use of conservative responding alone tended to reduce performance in the MCI and OC groups, both deep encoding alone and deep encoding combined with conservative strategies led to improved discrimination for both gist memory and item-specific recollection for these two groups. In the AD group, only gist memory benefited from the use of strategies, boosted equally by deep encoding alone and deep encoding combined with conservative strategies; item-specific recollection was not improved. No correlation between the use of these strategies and performance on neuropsychological measures was found. Conclusions: These results suggest that further evaluation of these strategies is warranted as they have the potential to reduce related and unrelated memory errors and increase both gist memory and item-specific recollection in healthy older adults and individuals with amnestic MCI. Patients with AD were less able to benefit from such strategies, yet were still able to use them to reduce unrelated memory errors and increase gist memory.

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