Information Center > News & Views >

News reports of research into memory June 2001

For index of all headlines, go to News & Views main page

To look at research reports sorted by subject go to Research Reports

For news about Alzheimer's research go directly to the Alzheimer's page

You can find links to the journals referred to on this site here: Journal links

June 2001

American adults and preschool children recall their personal memories in a way that is consistently different from the way indigenous Chinese do, according to recent study. "Americans often report lengthy, specific, emotionally elaborate memories that focus on the self as a central character. Chinese tend to give brief accounts of general routine events that center on collective activities and are often emotionally neutral."From an earlier study (published in Memory, Vol. 8, 2000), it is thought that these differences in remembering (with their implications for sense of self) reflect the different conversational styles between mother and child found in these two cultures.
The study appears in the August issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-06/aaft-ach062601.php

About one-third of the people who were exposed to a fake print advertisement that described a visit to Disneyland and how they met and shook hands with Bugs Bunny later said they remembered or knew the event happened to them.
The study was presented the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society on June 17 in Toronto and at a satellite session of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Kingston, Ontario.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-06/UoW-tIta-1006101.php

We talk about "chunking" all the time in the context of memory. But the process of breaking information down into manageable bits occurs, it seems, right from perception. Magnetic resonance imaging reveals that when people watched movies of common, everyday, goal-directed activities (making the bed, doing the dishes, ironing a shirt), their brains automatically broke these continuous events into smaller segments. The study also identified a network of brain areas that is activated during the perception of boundaries between events. "The fact that changes in brain activity occurred during the passive viewing of movies indicates that this is how we normally perceive continuous events, as a series of segments rather than a dynamic flow of action."
The study is published in the June 2001 issue of Nature Neuroscience. Full reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/aaft-bp070201.php

A number of studies in recent years have provided evidence that estrogen is critical to a woman's mental functioning, in particular, her memory and her ability to process words. Estrogen also may reduce a woman's chance of developing Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that hormone replacement therapy might help protect against Alzheimer's. More will hopefully be known in 2005, when results are expected from the Women's Health Initiative, a 15-year nationwide study into the effects of hormone therapy, diet and supplementary calcium and vitamin D on osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer in older women.

Researchers from Leiden University tested the mental functioning of 599 Dutch men and women aged 85 years. Good mental speed on word and number recognition tests was found in 33% of the women and 28% of the men. Forty one per cent of the women and 29% of the men had a good memory. This despite the fact that significantly more of the women had limited formal education compared to the men (not surprising given the time in which they grew up). The authors suggested that biological differences - such as the relative absence of cardiovascular disease in elderly women compared with men of the same age - could account for these sex differences in mental decline.
The study appeared in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 71:29-32.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-06/BSJ-Ewhb-1706101.php

A U.S. national study of 5,398 children aged 6 to 16 found iron deficiency in 3% of the children overall, and 8.7% of girls aged 12 to 16 (7% without anemia). Average math scores for iron-deficient children with or without anemia were about six points lower than those with normal iron levels. Among adolescent girls, the difference in scores was more than eight points. Previous research has linked iron-deficiency anemia with lower developmental test scores in young children, but there is less information on older children and on iron deficiency without anemia. It is suggested that this finding may help explain why the female superiority in maths at younger ages reverses itself in adolescence.
The study was published in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. Full reference
http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/abstract/107/6/1381

The so-called "maths block" is notorious - why do we have such a term? Do we talk about a "geography block", or a "physics block"? But we do talk of a reading block. Perhaps the reason for both is the same.
The amount of information you can work with at one time has clear limits, defined by your working memory capacity. When we are anxious, part of our working memory is taken up with our awareness of these fears and worries, leaving less capacity available for processing (which is why students who are very anxious during exams usually perform well below their capabilities). Processes such as reading and working with numbers are very sensitive to working memory capacity because they place such demands on it.
A recently reported study by Mark H. Ashcraft and Elizabeth P. Kirk, both psychologists at Cleveland (Ohio) State University, provides the first solid evidence that, indeed, math-anxious people have working memory problems as they do maths.
This study appeared in the June issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
http://www.sciencenews.org/20010630/fob4.asp

The dangers of PCBs (once widely used as electrical insulators and lubricants and in paints and varnishes) have long been known, and assumed to apply chiefly to children and developing fetuses. A long-term study of those who eat the PCB-laden fish from Lake Michigan suggests for the first time that high levels of PCB may cause problems learning and remembering new verbal information in adults. In particular, those with high blood PCB levels had difficulties recalling a story told just 30 minutes earlier, and were less likely than their less-exposed peers to cluster words given orally into categories based on their meaning to boost recall.
The study is on line and appeared in print in the June issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institutes of Health. Full reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-06/UoIa-Hcot-0406101.php
http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2001/109-6/toc.html

Cognitive problems affect up to 60% of patients with multiple sclerosis. Treatment of MS has until now paid little attention to this aspect of the disease. A preliminary study of 17 patients with advanced MS and severe cognitive impairment found that a drug currently used to treat mild to moderate dementia from Alzheimer’s disease was noticeably effective in improving the cognitive functioning in many of the MS patients. A study of 240 patients at 21 hospitals and medical centers is now about to commence.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-06/UoRM-Dtmd-1706101.php

Return to top