The Role of Recognition Memory in Learning in People with Aphasia
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1
Asia University, Taiwan
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2
Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Background. Learning in people with aphasia has drawn increasing attention, given the relevance of learning to rehabilitation. While the majority of studies assert reduced learning in people with aphasia based on the accuracy of recall/recollection of newly-learnt associations, the importance of recognition, which supports learning, is overlooked. Therefore, this study breaks down the learning process by focusing the investigation on recognition memory to verify if the difficulty lies in the initial stage, establishing familiarity of new associations. Further, the potential effect(s) of language function and verbal and non-verbal short-term memory (STM) on recognition is explored.
Methodology. Sixteen people with aphasia (mean age = 65) were recruited along with two groups of eighteen participants without aphasia, young (mean age = 21.50) and age-matched older controls (mean age = 62.50), for a familiarity-based recognition task. In the task, a series of 580 pictorial stimuli were presented, one at a time, to the participants. The eighty ‘target’ pictures were repeatedly presented (three times) throughout the task whilst the other 260 pictures were used as ‘fillers’, appeared once only, to create appropriate lag schedule between targets. The pictures were coloured photographs of real-life scenes taken at various focal lengths and none of the them contained particular salient information that could be easily verbalised for memorisation.
In addition to the familiarity-based recognition task, the people with aphasia completed a verbal STM task (digit string repetition) and a non-verbal STM task [modified from the visual memory span test in Wechsler Memory Scale – Revised (Wechsler, 1987)]. Also, their language production scores, based on the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (Swinburn, Porter, & Howard, 2004), were collected.
Results. A mixed repeated-measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to compare the accuracy and reaction time of the groups respectively. The ANOVAs involved two within participant factors (lag & number of presentation) and a between participant factor (group). Regardless of group, accuracy improved significantly (F (3, 147) =41.96, p < 0.001) at the third presentation and onwards (see Figure 1). Moreover, the number of presentation significantly decrease participants’ reaction time (F (3, 147) =79.48, p < 0.001). Group had main effects on accuracy (F (2, 49) =5.01, p = 0.011) as well as reaction time (F (2, 49) =8.06, p < 0.001); yet, no interaction was found between the three independent factors. In addition, Pearson’s correlations showed no correlations between recognition, language production, and verbal and non-verbal STM.
Discussion. This study is the first to explore the role of recognition memory in learning. The results demonstrate that people with aphasia, who mirror the controls, are capable of establishing familiarity to new information through repeated presentation. This finding suggests that reduced learning reported in the existing literature might not be a result of general learning deficit but associated with disrupted retrieval processes in recall. Moreover, language production is associated with verbal STM but not recognition performance, this indicates linguistic knowledge has little effect on recognition but could play a role in recall.
References
Swinburn, K., Porter, G., & Howard, D. (2004). The Comprehensive Aphasia Test. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Wechsler, D. (1987). WMS-R: Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised: Psychological Corporation.
Keywords:
recognition,
familiarity based learning,
Aphasia,
Short Term Memory (STM),
Nonverbal stimuli
Conference:
Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster presentation
Topic:
Not eligible for student award
Citation:
Wang
YN,
Morris
J and
Howard
D
(2019). The Role of Recognition Memory in Learning in People with Aphasia.
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00014
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Received:
28 Apr 2019;
Published Online:
09 Oct 2019.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Yu-Hsien N Wang, Asia University, Taichung, 41354, Taiwan, yh.natalie.wang@gmail.com