Evaluates an intervention designed to improve everyday memory function, contrasting people receiving the intervention with a group that receives traditional memory strategy training.
This project seeks to develop and validate a novel approach to training everyday memory functioning in older adults. The approach (1) trains people to use simple but effective memory skills that have broad applicability in everyday life and (2) shapes a set of skills and habits of mind that will increase the likelihood of effective use of skills and memory aids. It is based on a metacognitive perspective on self-regulation in cognitively demanding situations and informed by recent theories about how suboptimal habit patterns can be altered. The approach has not yet been used in an everyday memory intervention in high-functioning, community-dwelling older adults. The proposed research validates ecological momentary assessment methods to get actual behavioral measures of forgetting in everyday life. It then uses these procedures in a randomized experiment that contrasts the everyday memory intervention group with a traditional memory-strategy training group. The hypothesis is that the everyday memory training intervention will reduce everyday memory errors and memory complaints, whereas the memory strategy training will alter strategy use and memory performance, with little cross-over effect. The hypothesized pattern will establish the explicit benefits of our everyday memory intervention procedures and demonstrate the limitation of standard memory training for that purpose.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
68
Provides training in use of techniques and procedures to enhance proactive self-regulatory control over everyday memory demands, including strategies for learning information, planning for meeting everyday goals, and monitoring of efficacy of goal pursuit.
Trains use of standard mnemonic techniques such as imagery and sentence generation for learning new associations and organizational and distinctiveness-based strategies for learning sets of items (e.g., word lists).
Adult Cognition Lab
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Everyday Memory Failures
Across the data collection period, participants audio recorded descriptions of their memory failures on a smartphone app. The audio recordings were transcribed and then cleaned and qualitatively coded so that the number of memory failures each participant reported during the data collection period could be counted. The data was qualitatively coded to ensure an accurate count of the number of memory failures per participant without counting duplicate events or accidental reports. Average daily number of reported memory failures from EMA \& daily diaries is reported.
Time frame: minimum 8 day period after training on app prior to posttest
Prospective Memory Lab Contacts
Number of successfully completed lab contacts (maximum of 4)
Time frame: Two weeks prior to posttest
Prospective Memory Lab Contact Efficiency
median absolute time deviation (in minutes) from scheduled lab contact for completed contacts
Time frame: Two weeks prior to posttest
Everyday Cognition Simulation Task: ATM Task (Number of Errors)
Computerized task to simulate use of an ATM machine. Measure: number of errors
Time frame: posttest only
Czaja Everyday Cognition Simulation Task: Prescription Refill Task (Number of Errors)
Computerized task to simulate use of an automated telephone program to refill prescriptions. Measure: Number of errors
Time frame: posttest only
Free Recall Test
Computerized task to present 30 concrete nouns, 6 from 5 taxonomic categories (Hultsch, Hertzog, Dixon, \& Small, 1998) Measure is proportion of 30 words recalled
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
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Associative Recall Test
Computerized task to present 40 concrete-concrete associatively unrelated noun pairs (Hertzog, Sinclair, \& Dunlosky, 2010) Outcome is proportion of 40 words correctly recalled.
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
Story Recall
gist recall of narrative story (total number of propositions (ideas) from story recalled)
Time frame: posttest only
Everyday Cognition Simulation Task: ATM Task (Time in Seconds)
Computerized task to simulate use of an ATM machine. Measure: time to complete task (in seconds)
Time frame: posttest only
Czaja Everyday Cognition Simulation Task: Prescription Refill Task (Time in Seconds)
Computerized task to simulate use of an automated telephone program to refill prescriptions. Measure: time to complete task (in seconds)
Time frame: posttest only
MFQ Memory Complaint (Frequency of Forgetting Scale)
Summative Likert scale measuring frequency of reported memory problems for specific types of problems Measure is average item Likert rating on a 1-7 scale. Higher score indicates fewer memory problems
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
PBMI Specific Memory Self-Efficacy
The Personal Beliefs about Memory Instruments (PBMI) Specific Memory Self-Efficacy measurement is a summative visual analog rating scale measuring self-rated memory aggregated over multiple specific types of memory. Outcomes scaled in average proportion of distance from left (0) to maximum of 1.00 (higher scores indicate greater memory self-efficacy).
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
PBMI Memory Control
Summative visual analog rating scale measuring self-rated control over everyday. Outcome is scaled as average proportion of maximum endorsement (ranging from 0 to 1.0, with higher scores indicate greater perceived control)
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
MCQ Internal Scale
Summative Likert scale obtaining self-rated frequency of use of internal mnemonic strategies in everyday life. Average Likert rating on 1-5 scale (higher scores indicate greater use of strategies)
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)
MCQ External
Summative Likert scale obtaining self-rated frequency of use of external memory aids. Outcome is scaled as average Likert rating on 1-5 scale. Higher score indicates greater use of external aids.
Time frame: pretest and posttest (approximately 1 month lag)