Musical and verbal memory in Alzheimer's disease: a study of long-term and short-term memory.
Musical memory was tested in Alzheimer patients and in healthy older adults using long-term and short-term memory tasks. Long-term memory (LTM) was tested with a recognition procedure using unfamiliar melodies. Short-term memory (STM) was evaluated with same/different judgment tasks on short series of notes. Musical memory was compared to verbal memory using a task that used pseudowords (LTM) or syllables (STM). Results indicated impaired musical memory in AD patients relative to healthy controls. The deficit was found for both long-term and short-term memory. Furthermore, it was of the same magnitude for both musical and verbal domains whether tested with short-term or long-term memory tasks. No correlation was found between musical and verbal LTM. However, there was a significant correlation between verbal and musical STM in AD participants and healthy older adults, which suggests that the two domains may share common mechanisms.
Ménard
Marie-Claude
MC
Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal and Research Center, Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
Belleville
Sylvie
S
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009146:Music; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D010700:Phonetics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology