Effect of self-imagination on memory for older adults and aMCI patients

Abstract

Imagining an event from a personal perspective has been found to be able to enhance memory for words and sentences for healthy younger adults and brain-injured patients. However, little is known about how people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) respond to self-imagination, in comparison to healthy older adults. In the current study, participants were asked to process a group of objects using either a self-imagination approach or a baseline strategy in which the self was not heavily involved. Self-imagination shows a mnemonic advantage over the control strategy, though this pattern emerged more clearly for healthy older adults. Furthermore, suggestive evidence indicates that cognitive ability supports self-reference benefits for healthy older adults, but not aMCI patients. These findings extended previous research to reveal the effectiveness of self-imagination for older adults using pictorial stimuli and supported the viewpoint that aMCI could qualitatively change the way that cognitive resources are engaged.