The influence of short-term memory on standard discrimination and cued identification olfactory tasks (original) (raw)
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Long-Term Memory for Odors: Influences of Familiarity and Identification Across 64 Days
Chemical senses, 2015
Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespe...
Variability and Coupling of Olfactory Identification and Episodic Memory in Older Adults
The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2018
To determine whether assessment-to-assessment fluctuations in episodic memory (EM) reflect fluctuations in olfaction over time. Within-person coupled variation in EM and the Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT) was examined in 565 participants aged 58-106 with autopsy data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project. A growth model for up to 15 years of EM data, with BSIT as time-varying covariate, was estimated accounting for main effects of sex, education, ε4 allele, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology, BSIT and time-varying BSIT, as well as the interaction between AD pathology and time-varying BSIT. Individuals with higher BSIT scores (b = 0.01, SE = 0.004, p = 0.009) had slower declines in EM. High AD pathology (b = -0.06, SE = 0.02, p = 0.001) was associated with more rapid declines in EM. The association between time-specific fluctuations in EM and BSIT differed by level of AD pathology (b = 0.08, SE = 0.034, p = 0.028), with a higher EM-BSIT association at higher levels o...
Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment
This study evaluated human Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent (BOLD) responses in primary and higher-order olfactory regions of older adults, using odor memory and odor identification tasks. The goal was to determine which olfactory and memory regions of interest are more strongly engaged in older populations comparing these two odor training tasks. Methods: Twelve adults 55-75 years old (75% females) without intranasal or major neurological disorders performed repetitive odor memory and identification tasks using a 3-tesla magnetic resonance scanner. Odors were presented intermittently at 10-second bursts separated by 20-second intervals of odorless air. Paired t-tests were used to compare differences in the degree of activation between odor identification and odor memory tasks within individuals. An FDR cluster-level correction of p<0.05 was used for multiplicity of tests (with a cluster-defining threshold set at p<0.01 and 10 voxels). Results: Odor identification compared to memory (ie, odor identification > odor memory) contrasts had several areas of significant activation, including many of the classical olfactory brain regions as well as the hippocampus. The opposite contrast (odor memory > odor identification) included the piriform cortex, though this was not significant. Both tasks equally activated the piriform cortex, and thus when the two tasks are compared to each other this area of activation appears to be either absent (OI > OM) or only weakly observed (OM > OI). Conclusion: These findings from a predominantly African American sample suggest that odor identification tasks may be more potent than memory tasks in targeted olfactory engagement in older populations. Furthermore, repetitive odor identification significantly engaged the hippocampus-a region relevant to Alzheimer's disease-more significantly than did the odor memory task. If validated in larger studies, this result could have important implications in the design of olfactory training paradigms.
Chemical Senses, 2004
This study investigated demographic and cognitive correlates of cued odor identification in a population-based sample from the Betula project: 1906 healthy adults varying in age from 45 to 90 years were assessed in a number of tasks tapping various cognitive domains, including cognitive speed, semantic memory and executive functioning. The results revealed a gradual and linear deterioration in cued odor identification across the adult life span. Overall, females identified more odors than men, although men and women performed at the same level in the oldest age cohort (85-90 years). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that age, sex, education, cognitive speed and vocabulary were reliable correlates of performance in the odor identification task. In addition, age-related deficits in the included demographic and cognitive variables could not fully account for the observed age-related impairment in identification, suggesting that additional factors are underlying the observed deterioration. Likely candidates here are sensory abilities such as olfactory detection and discrimination. by guest on November 25, 2015 http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from 548 M. Larsson et al. Patterns of adrenergic and peptidergic innervation in human olfactory mucosa: age-related trends.
Neuropsychology, 2016
Objective: To examine changes in odor identification performance and cognitive measures in healthy aging individuals. While cross-sectional studies reveal associations between odor identification and measures of episodic memory, processing speed, and executive function, longitudinal studies so far have been ambiguous with regard to demonstrating that odor identification may be predictive of decline in cognitive function. Method: One hundred and 7 healthy aging individuals (average age 60.2 years, 71% women) were assessed with an odor identification test and nonolfactory cognitive measures of verbal episodic memory, mental processing speed, executive function, and language 3 times, covering a period of 6.5 years. Results: The cross-sectional results revealed odor identification performance to be associated with age, measures of verbal episodic memory, and processing speed. Using linear mixed models, the longitudinal analyses revealed age-associated decline in all measures. Controlling for retest effects, the analyses demonstrated that gender was a significant predictor for episodic memory and mental processing speed. Odor identification performance was further shown to be a significant predictor for episodic verbal memory. Conclusion: This study shows age-related decline in odor identification as well as nonolfactory cognitive measures. The finding showing that odor identification is a significant predictor for verbal episodic memory is of great clinical interest as odor identification has been suggested as a sensitive measure of incipient pathologic cognitive decline.
Chemical Senses, 2015
This longitudinal study investigated changes in olfaction as assessed by a set of tasks requiring different aspects of semantic information in normal aging individuals. Using 16 odorous items from a standardized olfactory test, the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test, 107 middle aged and older adults were assessed up to three times over a period of 6.5 years, requesting them to rate familiarity and edibility for each odorous item before identifying it with or without presenting verbal cues. Using linear mixed models, the longitudinal analyses revealed significant correlations between all olfactory measures. Furthermore, we found an almost parallel age-related decline in all olfactory tasks, although free identification performance indicated a trend toward faster decline with age. Women showed less decline compared with men, in particular for edibility judgments. The results corroborate earlier cross-sectional findings showing significant correlations between the olfactory tasks. In the present study of healthy middle-aged and older adults, we found a parallel longitudinal decline across different tests of olfaction.
Kärnekull et al (2015) Long term memory for odors Chemical Senses
Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespective of accuracy, was positively related to successful recognition.
Test-Retest Reliability and Validity of the Sniffin' TOM Odor Memory Test
Chemical Senses, 2014
Few attempts have been made to develop an olfactory test that captures episodic retention of olfactory information. Assessment of episodic odor memory is of particular interest in aging and in the cognitively impaired as both episodic memory deficits and olfactory loss have been targeted as reliable hallmarks of cognitive decline and impending dementia. Here, 96 healthy participants (18-92 years) and an additional 19 older people with mild cognitive impairment were tested (73-82 years). Participants were presented with 8 common odors with intentional encoding instructions that were followed by a yes-no recognition test. After recognition completion, participants were asked to identify all odors by means of free or cued identification. A retest of the odor memory test (Sniffin' TOM = test of odor memory) took place 17 days later. The results revealed satisfactory test-retest reliability (0.70) of odor recognition memory. Both recognition and identification performance were negatively affected by age and more pronounced among the cognitively impaired. In conclusion, the present work presents a reliable, valid, and simple test of episodic odor recognition memory that may be used in clinical groups where both episodic memory deficits and olfactory loss are prevalent preclinically such as Alzheimer's disease.
Recollective experience in odor recognition: Influences of adult age and familiarity
Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 2006
We examined recollective experience in odor memory as a function of age, intention to learn, and familiarity. Young and older adults studied a set of familiar and unfamiliar odors with incidental or intentional encoding instructions. At recognition, participants indicated whether their response was based on explicit recollection (remembering), a feeling of familiarity (knowing), or guessing. The results indicated no age-related differences in the distribution of experiential responses for unfamiliar odors. By contrast, for familiar odors the young demonstrated more explicit recollection than the older adults, who produced more ''know'' and ''guess'' responses. Intention to learn was unrelated to recollective experience. In addition, the observed age differences in ''remember'' responses for familiar odors were eliminated when odor naming was statistically controlled. This suggests that age-related deficits in activating specific odor knowledge (i.e., odor names) play an important role for age differences in recollective experience of olfactory information.