Neuropsychological study for soatial memory and imagery function inaged people

Research Project

Project/Area Number	04610057
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Psychology
Research Institution	OSAKA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION
Principal Investigator	HATTA Takeshi Ph, D., Osaka University of Education, Department of Psychology Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (80030469)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	YOSHIMURA Naomi OSAKA University of Education KAWAKAMI Ayako Japan Medical Laboratory
Project Period (FY)	1992 – 1993
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1993)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000) Fiscal Year 1993: ¥300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000) Fiscal Year 1992: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Keywords	Aged people / Face memory / Shape memory / Temporal order / Memory Dysfunction / Senile dementia / 脳損傷(右脳)患者 / アルツハイマー患者
Research Abstract	To exammine the memory mechanisms in the aged people, two experiments were conduced. Normal aged people, senile dementia patients, and normal young adults (college students) participated in these experriments as subjects. In one experiment, nonsensa Kana words and random geometric shapes were presented sequentially and subjects were asked to decide if the presented stimulus was has appeared before or not. The results showed the dissociation between words and shapes, Aged subjects was inferior only in words stimulus condition. Senile dementia and young adults showed no such dissociation. In the other experiment, three groups of subjects were given same type of memory task with human face photographs. Aged people showd better perfomance with the photographs of young adults. Based upon these findings, the imortance of the frontal lobe function was stressed in the deterioration of memory function with aging. Consulting to previous neuropsychological models of memory function of the aged people, the results of the two experiments were discussed and the final report was prepared.