Intra- and interindividual differences in lateralized cognitive performance and asymmetrical EEG activity in the frontal cortex

The study shows that changes in relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency performance from one session to a second session two to 3 weeks apart covary with spontaneously occurring changes of cortical asymmetry in the lateral frontal and central cortex, measured by electroencephalography (EEG) in resting conditions before the execution of tasks. That is, it was examined whether the current state of cortical asymmetry predicts verbal vs. figural performance. The findings complete the circle from studies showing correlations between changes of EEG asymmetry in the lateral frontal cortex and changes of mood to studies showing correlations between changes of mood and changes of relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency performance. The study suggests that state-dependent changes of lateralized cortical activity may underlie certain cognitive-emotional interactions observed in previous studies, and supports the assumption of reciprocal influences of specific emotional and specific cognitive processes.     

Happiness increases verbal and spatial working memory capacity where sadness does not: Emotion,working memory and executive control

The effects of emotion on working memory and executive control are often studied in isolation. Positive mood enhances verbal and impairs spatial working memory, whereas negative mood enhances spatial and impairs verbal working memory. Moreover, positive mood enhances executive control, whereas negative mood has little influence. We examined how emotion influences verbal and spatial working memory capacity, which requires executive control to coordinate between holding information in working memory and completing a secondary task. We predicted that positive mood would improve both verbal and spatial working memory capacity because of its influence on executive control. Positive, negative and neutral moods were induced followed by completing a verbal (Experiment 1) or spatial (Experiment 2) working memory operation span task to assess working memory capacity. Positive mood enhanced working memory capacity irrespective of the working memory domain, whereas negative mood had no influence on performance. Thus, positive mood was more successful holding information in working memory while processing task-irrelevant information, suggesting that the influence mood has on executive control supersedes the independent effects mood has on domain-specific working memory.     

Declarative verbal memory impairments in middle-aged women who are caregivers of offspring with autism spectrum disorders: The role of negative affect and testosterone

Caring for offspring diagnosed with a chronic psychological disorder such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is used in research as a model of chronic stress. This chronic stress has been reported to have deleterious effects on caregivers' cognition, particularly in verbal declarative memory. Moreover, such cognitive decline may be mediated by testosterone (T) levels and negative affect, understood as depressive mood together with high anxiety and anger. This study aimed to compare declarative memory function in middle-aged women who were caregivers for individuals with ASD (n = 24; mean age = 45) and female controls (n = 22; mean age = 45), using a standardised memory test (Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test). It also sought to examine the role of care recipient characteristics, negative mood and T levels in memory impairments. ASD caregivers were highly sensitive to proactive interference and verbal forgetting. In addition, they had higher negative affect and T levels, both of which have been associated with poorer verbal memory performance. Moreover, the number of years of caregiving affected memory performance and negative affect, especially, in terms of anger feelings. On the other hand, T levels in caregivers had a curvilinear relationship with verbal memory performance; that is, increases in T were associated with improvements in verbal memory performance up to a certain point, but subsequently, memory performance decreased with increasing T. Chronic stress may produce disturbances in mood and hormonal levels, which in turn might increase the likelihood of developing declarative memory impairments although caregivers do not show a generalised decline in memory. These findings should be taken into account for understanding the impact of cognitive impairments on the ability to provide optimal caregiving.     

Low alpha power (7.5–9.5 Hz) changes during positive and negative affective learning

There is evidence that the positive and the negative word lists of the Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AAVL) are useful with regard to mood induction. To date, however, changes in brain activation, as indicated by quantitative electroencephalographic recording, have not been examined. Thus, changes in low alpha power (7.5-9.5 Hz) were examined during and after completion of the positive or the negative learning list of the AAVL among 37 undergraduate men and women. Three primary findings from the study include the following: (1) Previously reported recall patterns were replicated; (2) participants who completed the negative list reported a significant decline in mood state at the end of the session; and (3) participants who completed the negative word list evidenced a significant reduction in low alpha power (in comparison with baseline) within the parietal regions. The findings noted above are seemingly counter to contemporary theories of mood regulation (i.e., asymmetrical changes in anterior activity, rather than changes in parietal regions). Although the AAVL may have limited utility as a tool for mood induction, it may serve as a functional tool for examination of the cerebral processes associated with affective verbal memory.     

Can bad weather improve your memory? An unobtrusive field study of natural mood effects on real-life memory

Can good or bad mood induced by the weather influence people’s ability to correctly remember everyday scenes? In this unobtrusive field study, we predicted and found that weather-induced negative mood improved memory accuracy. Randomly selected shoppers on bright, sunny days (good mood) or on cloudy, rainy days (bad mood) saw 10 unusual objects in the check-out area of a suburban shop, and their recall and recognition memory for these objects was later tested. Shoppers in a negative mood showed better memory and higher discrimination ability. The cognitive mechanisms responsible for everyday mood effects on memory performance are discussed, and the implications of these findings for current affect/cognition theories and applied areas are considered.     

On being sad and evasive: Affective influences on verbal communication strategies in conflict situations

Does mood influence people’s tendency to engage in evasive, equivocal communication when facing conflict situations? Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on verbal communication, this experiment predicted that negative mood should increase, and positive mood decrease the level of verbal evasiveness in conflict situations, and that high situational conflict should magnify these mood effects. Participants underwent a happy or sad audiovisual mood induction, and then produced verbal responses to low- and high-conflict situations using structured as well as open-ended responses. Results indicated that affect and conflict severity had an interactive influence on evasiveness and equivocation: negative affect produced significantly more evasiveness than positive affect, and these effects were greater in high than in low-conflict situations. These results are discussed in terms of the cognitive strategies that mediate mood effects on verbal communication. The implications of the findings for everyday communication situations, and for current affect-cognition theorizing are considered.     

Recognition memory for pictorial material in subclinical depression

Depression has been associated with impaired recollection of episodic details in tests of recognition memory that use verbal material. In two experiments, the remember/know procedure was employed to investigate the effects of dysphoric mood on recognition memory for pictorial materials that may not be subject to the same processing limitations found for verbal materials in depression. In Experiment 1, where the recognition test took place two weeks after encoding, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer know judgements which were likely to be at least partly due to a remember-to-know shift. Although pictures were accompanied by negative or neutral captions at encoding, no effect of captions on recognition memory was observed. In Experiment 2, where the recognition test occurred soon after viewing the pictures, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer remember judgements. All participants reported more remember judgements for pictures of emotionally negative content than pictures of neutral content. Together, these findings demonstrate that recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is compromised in dysphoric individuals in a way that is consistent with a recollection deficit for episodic detail and also reminiscent of that previously reported for verbal materials. These findings contribute to our developing understanding of how mood and memory interact.     

Endocrinology of menopausal transition and its brain implications

The central nervous system is one of the main target tissues for sex steroid hormones, which act on both through genomic mechanisms, modulating synthesis, release, and metabolism of many neuropeptides and neurotransmitters, and through non-genomic mechanisms, influencing electrical excitability, synaptic function, morphological features, and neuron-glia interactions. During the climacteric period, sex steroid deficiency causes many neuroendocrine changes. At the hypothalamic level, estrogen withdrawal gives rise to vasomotor symptoms, to eating behavior disorders, and altered blood pressure control. On the other hand, at the limbic level, the changes in serotoninergic, noradrenergic, and opioidergic tones contribute to the modifications in mood, behavior, and nociception. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) positively affects climateric depression throughout a direct effect on neural activity and on the modulation of adrenergic and serotoninergic tones and may modulate the decrease in cognitive efficiency observed in climaterium. The identification of the brain as a de novo source of neurosteroids, suggests that the modifications in mood and cognitive performances occurring in postmenopausal women may also be related to a change in the levels of neurosteroids. These findings open new perspectives in the study of the effects of sex steroids on the central nervous system and on the possible use of alternative and/or auxiliary HRT.     

Investigating the relationship between working memory and emotion regulation in mothers

Recent work suggests that executive functions, specifically working memory, may facilitate emotion regulation (ER). Here we examined whether measures of visuospatial working memory and verbal working memory relate to ER in a group of recent mothers. We found that while visuospatial working memory was associated with, and predictive of, self-reported measures of ER and emotion dysregulation—verbal working memory was correlated to only one dimension of emotion dysregulation. These findings suggest that working memory may play a unique role in everyday regulatory functioning. We frame our results in terms of the broader implications they may have for the potential role of executive functioning in parenting.     

The differential effect of background music on memory for verbal and visuospatial information

Background music is a part of our everyday activities. Considerable evidence suggests that listening to music while performing cognitive tasks may negatively influence performance. However, other studies have shown that it can benefit memory when the music played during the encoding of information is also provided during the retrieval of that information, in the so-called context dependent memory effect. Since controversial results may be attributed to the nature of the material to be memorized, the aim of the present study is to compare the potential effect of consistent background music on the immediate and long-term recall of verbal and visuospatial information. Experiment 1 showed that instrumental background music does not benefit nor decrease recall of a list of unrelated words, both at the immediate and the 48-hours-delayed tests. By contrast, Experiment 2 revealed that the same background music can impair immediate and therefore long-term memory for visuospatial information. Results are interpreted in terms of competition for neurocognitive resources, with tasks mostly relying on the same brain hemisphere competing for a limited set of resources. Hence, background music might impair visuospatial memory to a greater extent than verbal memory, in the context of limited capacity cognitive system. In conclusion, the nature of the material to be learnt must be considered to fully understand the effect of background music on memory.     

Is happiness a cure-all for mental fatigue?: mood interacts with situational requirements in predicting performance

There is a set of competing theories for how emotion influences behavior after being psychologically challenged. One group of theories emphasize that positive affect enhances performance after a psychological challenge. Conversely, the emotion and goal compatibility theory argues that positive and negative emotions can enhance or reduce performance and motivation to control behavior depending on the task requirements. To test these contrasting predictions, participants were psychologically challenged by completing a Stroop task and then induced into a positive, negative, or neutral mood. A verbal or spatial working memory task was then completed to assess performance and motivation to control behavior. As predicted, positive mood benefited performance and behavioral control on the verbal working memory task, whereas, a negative mood benefited performance and behavioral control on the spatial working memory task. Thus, following a psychological challenge motivation to control behavior depended on interactions between mood and task requirements consistent with the emotion and goal compatibility theory. (155).     

Which behaviours? Identifying the most common and burdensome behaviour changes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Behaviour change is increasingly recognised as a common feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and may be similar to that seen in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The behaviours most disturbed in ALS, and those that relate most significantly to caregiver burden, however, have not been well established. Forty ALS participants and their caregivers, and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy controls and their relatives, participated in this study. ALS participants were assessed on a disease rating scale, and caregivers and control informants completed the revised version of the Cambridge Behaviour Inventory and a measure of burden. ALS caregivers reported significantly more disturbance than healthy control informants on the functional domains of everyday skills, self-care, and sleep, and in the behavioural domains of mood and motivation. There were no differences between groups in frequency of memory and orientation difficulties, or behaviours characteristic of FTD, such as changes to eating habits or stereotypic and motor behaviour, indicating that the behavioural profile in ALS may differ from FTD. In the ALS group, the domains with the strongest relationship to caregiver burden were everyday skills, motivation and memory, likely because poor motivation, memory dysfunction and difficulties completing activities of daily living require more carer support via direct supervision, prompting or hands on care. Services to support ALS patients and caregivers need to provide targeted interventions for those functional and behavioural changes which are most burdensome in the disease.     

Mood and the perception of unusual people: Affective asymmetry in memory and social judgments

Does good and bad mood have a different influence on our perceptions of typical and atypical people? In this experiment, people in happy, sad or neutral moods recalled, and formed impressions of high- or low-prototypical characters. We expected an asymmetric mood effect on memory, with better recall of typical targets that require simplified, schematic processing in positive mood, but greater negative mood effects on atypical targets that require more detailed and inferential processing. Subjects (N = 66) an audio-visual mood induction in an allegedly separate experiment, before recalling, and forming impressions about people who were consistent or inconsistent with familiar prototypes within their social milieu. We found the predicted mood-congruent bias in judgments, that was significantly greater for non-typical than for typical people. We also found evidence for positive-negative mood asymmetry in memory, with better recall of typical people in positive mood, and atypical people in negative mood. The findings are discussed in terms of contemporary multi-process models of affect and cognition (Forgas, 1992), and the implications for everyday affective influences on social judgments and stereotyping are considered.     

Sex Differences in Episodic Memory

ABSTRACT— Research shows sex differences in episodic memory. These differences vary in magnitude as a function of the type of material to be remembered. Throughout the life span, verbal episodic-memory tasks yield differences favoring women. In contrast, episodic-memory tasks requiring visuospatial processing result in differences favoring men. There are also sex differences favoring women on episodic-memory tasks requiring both verbal and visuospatial processing and on face-recognition tasks. Thus, there may be a small, general episodic-memory advantage for women—an advantage that can increase by the advantage women have over men in verbal production and can be reversed by the male advantage in visuospatial tasks. In addition, environmental factors affect the magnitude of the sex differences in episodic memory.     

Memory training and strategy use in older adults: results from the ACTIVE study

Little is known about the long-term effects of memory training in later life on strategy use. Data from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) study (n = 1,401) were used to describe strategy use in a community-dwelling sample of older adults. Strategy clustering scores on verbal list learning tasks of episodic memory were used to test the impact of memory training on strategy use and study longitudinal associations between strategy clustering, memory performance, and everyday functioning. Results suggested that younger, female, white, healthier, and more educated participants show higher strategy clustering scores initially but no characteristics were consistently associated with different trajectories in strategy clustering across all strategy clustering measures together. Memory training had significant immediate effects on all measures of strategy use that were maintained through five years of follow-up. With respect to longitudinal mediation, pre-post training changes in most strategy clustering scores mediate changes in objective memory performance and everyday functioning, implying that strategies can be modified and are closely related to both memory ability and the ability to function independently. This study provides evidence that older adults can be trained to use cognitive strategies, the effects are durable, and strategies are associated with memory and everyday functioning.     

Role of anxiety and brooding in specificity of autobiographical recall

Overgeneral schemas and lack of autobiographical memory (AM) specificity about our past experiences can predict mood disturbance. Rumination, functional avoidance and executive processes are the main explanatory variables of such overgenerality. However, in non‐clinical samples, rumination predicts overgenerality most consistently after the induction of dysphoric mood. Anxiety also activates rumination. Furthermore, anxiety predicts memory performance and has effects on mood which are independent of the effects of rumination. So, what might be the role of anxiety in autobiographical memory performance? A sample of 210 voluntary participants reported measures of autobiographical memory, anxiety, rumination (brooding and reflection), functional avoidance and executive functions (semantic and phonetic verbal fluency task). Autobiographical performance (specificity) was negatively associated with brooding and age and positively with phonetic verbal fluency but not with functional avoidance and anxiety. However, anxiety and brooding were positively correlated even after controlling for depression scores. Moreover, using structural equation modeling, anxiety showed a significant indirect effect on autobiographical specificity through brooding rumination. These results suggest a possible association of anxiety with autobiographical recall through brooding rumination.     

Sex and post-menopause hormone therapy effects on hippocampal volume and verbal memory

Many studies suggest sex differences in memory and hippocampal size, and that hormone therapy (HT) may positively affect these measures in women; however, the parameters of HT use that most likely confer benefits are debated. We evaluated the impact of sex and postmenopausal HT use on verbal learning and memory and hippocampal size in 94 cognitively intact women and 49 men. Using analysis of covariance that controlled for age and education, women had better total word learning and delayed verbal memory performance than men. HT analyses showed that non-HT users performed similarly to men, while HT users performed better than men in Delayed Memory regardless of whether use was current or in the past. Women had larger hippocampal volumes than men regardless of whether they were HT users. Using univariate linear models, we assessed group differences in the predictive value of hippocampal volumes for verbal learning and memory. Hippocampal size significantly predicted memory performance for men and non-HT users, but not for HT users. This lack of relationship between hippocampal size and verbal learning and memory performance in HT users suggests HT use may impact memory through extra-hippocampal neural systems.     

Word list memory predicts everyday function and problem-solving in the elderly: results from the ACTIVE cognitive intervention trial

Data from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) trial (N = 2,802) were analyzed to examine whether word list learning predicts future everyday functioning. Using stepwise random effects modeling, measures from the modified administrations of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) and the Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) were independently predictive of everyday IADL functioning, problem-solving, and psychomotor speed. Associations between memory scores and everyday functioning outcomes remained significant across follow-up intervals spanning 5 years. HVLT total recall score was consistently the strongest predictor of each functional outcome. Results suggest that verbal memory measures are uniquely associated with both current and future functioning and that specific verbal memory tests like the HVLT and AVLT have important clinical utility in predicting future functional ability among older adults.     

增龄性记忆改变规律及影响因素的研究

本研究用多维记忆量表对280名50～91岁的老年人做了测查,同时收集了一般资料,以探讨增龄性记忆改变的规律和年龄、教育和职业等因素对增龄性记忆改变的影响。结果表明：随年龄增长,各记忆组合分和分测验成绩均呈下降趋势,外显记忆成绩在70岁后呈快速下降,内隐记忆和日常生活记忆在75岁后才有明显下降;记忆总分、外显记忆和日常生活记忆均受年龄和教育的影响,内隐记忆不受教育的影响。结果提示老年人记忆随年龄增长呈渐渐下降,不同记忆功能开始下降的年龄和下降速率不同,教育对增龄性记忆改变有保护作用。