Effects of familiarity and temporal organization on memory for event schemas in aged and Alzheimer subjects: Implications for clinical management

Individuals with Alzheimer disease (AD) often forget how to perform everyday activities. To understand better this type of memory loss, the effects of familiarity and temporal organization on memory for event schemas was investigated in college students, elderly controls, and individuals with AD. Participants were asked to read short stories describing common activities. Both recall and recognition memory were assessed immediately after reading the story. The number of items correctly remembered and the error types were recorded and analyzed. Both familiarity and temporal organization were found to play a role in memory for event schemas. All groups remembered the most information when the stories were familiar and sequentially organized. Elderly participants were more likely to remember items associated with, but included in, the stories than were the other groups. The AD group was the only group to recall or recognize items not associated with the story. It was concluded that event schema memory in AD participants is moderated by the same factors that influence memory in healthy young and elderly participants. These results suggest that individuals with PLD will be best able to perform common everyday activities when they are familiar and when daily activities follow a predictable sequential pattern.