False Recollection of Emotional Pictures in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) can reduce the effects of emotional content on memory for studied pictures, but less is known about false memory. In healthy adults, emotionally arousing pictures can be more susceptible to false memory effects than neutral pictures, potentially because emotional pictures share conceptual similarities that cause memory confusions. We investigatedthese effects in AD patients and healthy controls. Participants studied pictures and their verbal labels, and then picture recollection was tested using verbal labels as retrieval cues. Some of the test labels had been associated with a picture at study, whereas other had not. On this picture recollection test, we found that both AD patients and controlsincorrectly endorsed some of the test labels that had not been studiedwith pictures. These errors were associated with medium to high levels of confidence, indicating some degree of false recollection. Critically, these false recollection judgments were greater for emotionalcompared to neutral items, especially for positively valenced items, in both AD patients and controls. Dysfunction of the amygdala and hippocampusin early AD may impairrecollection, but ADdid not disrupt the effect of emotion on false recollection judgments.

from Neuropsychology

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