Dementia, learning and the P300 paradigm.
This investigation was designed to measure learning effects in demented patients, using psychophysiological methods. Twenty-five patients with vascular dementia and 25 age-matched controls were investigated with a P300 and reaction-time paradigm. The repetition of the cognitive process discriminating between different sizes of circles led to a significant decrease in P300 latency and in reaction time. It was therefore concluded that such a paradigm is able to measure learning effects, and also that vascularly-demented patients can improve their performance on such tasks.
Wranek
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Department of Physiological Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstrasse 34, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria.
Ladurner
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