title: Constrained prose recall and the assessment of long-term forgetting: the case of ageing and the Crimes Test.
abstract: It has become increasingly clear that some patients with apparently normal memory may subsequently show accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF), with dramatic loss when retested. We describe a constrained prose recall task that attempts to lay the foundations for a test suitable for detecting ALF sensitively and economically. Instead of the usual narrative structure of prose recall tests, it employs a matrix structure involving four episodes, each describing a minor crime, with each crime involving the binding into a coherent episode of a specified range of features, involving the victim, the crime, the criminal and the location, allowing a total of 80 different probed recall questions to be generated. These are used to create four equivalent 20-item tests, three of which are used in the study. After a single verbal presentation, young and elderly participants were tested on three occasions, immediately, and by telephone after a delay of 6 weeks, and at one of a varied range of intermediate points. The groups were approximately matched on immediate test; both showed systematic forgetting which was particularly marked in the elderly. We suggest that constrained prose recall has considerable potential for the study of long-term forgetting.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of York , York , UK.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baddeley
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rawlings
authors.forename: Amie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hayes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Accelerated long-term forgetting; Ageing; Episodic memory; Long-term binding; Prose recall