Word frequency effect and recognition memory in dementia of the alzheimer type

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Abstract
Normal persons show better recognition memory for rare than for common words. In the 1st experiment, this word frequency effect was examined in 17 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and 20 normal controls of equivalent age and education. The DAT patients showed a normal tendency to false alarm to common words but failed to show the normal rare word advantage in their hit rate. In a 2nd experiment, normal memory was examined immediately and after a delay of 2 wk when it is approximately equivalent to that of DAT patients. There was no attenuation of the usual rare word advantage. DAT patients fail to encode the featural and intrastructural elements of to-be-remembered verbal information, and this processing deficit may contribute to their impaired recognition memory performance.