Recall of object names and colors of objects in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease.
The Subject Performed Task (SPT) was used in order to determine whether normal older adults and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) differ in the ability to remember verbal and physical information. Mildly and moderately demented patients and normal controls were instructed to perform a series of SPTs involving objects, and were examined on recall of the object names and the colors of the objects. It was assumed that encoding and retrieval of the object names require a more extensive semantic elaboration than encoding and retrieval of the colors of the objects. Results showed that normal older adults performed at a higher level than the groups of mildly and moderately demented patients, and that the colors of the objects were better remembered than the object names for all groups. However, the magnitude of impairment in the AD groups was equal for both types of information. These results are in agreement with the notion that the episodic memory impairment in AD is global, rather than mediated by deficits in semantic memory.
Herlitz
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Section of Psychology, Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, Stockholm, Sweden.
Bäckman
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