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Episodic memory is the type of memory that allows the recollection of personal experiences containing information on what has happened and, also, where and when it happened. Because of its sensitivity to neurodegenerative diseases and the aging of the brain, it is considered a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease dementia (ADD). The objective of the present study was to examine episodic memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and ADD. Patients with the diagnosis of early aMCI, late aMCI, and mild ADD were evaluated using the Doors and People tool which consists of four subtests examining different aspects of episodic memory. The statistical analysis with receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) showed the discriminant potential and the cutoffs of every subtest. Overall, the evaluation of episodic memory with the Doors and People tool can discriminate with great sensitivity between the different groups of people with AD and, especially, early aMCI, late aMCI, and mild ADD patients.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of information processing speed on the functioning of specific working memory components, i.e. phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive and episodic buffer. Cognitive tasks that assess working memory ("word lists recall" for the phonological loop, "block recall" for the spatial component of visuospatial sketchpad, "listening recall" for the central executive and "immediate story recall" for the episodic buffer) and information processing speed (symbol digit modalities test- oral form) were administered to 38 patients with multiple sclerosis. Results showed that the central executive and episodic buffer components were significantly related to information processing speed. However, when age was included in the regression model, information processing speed significantly predicted only the episodic buffer scores. Further research on the relationship between the episodic buffer and information processing speed is recommended.

Sexuality is perceived either as result or prerequisite of love or as working in tandem with love in romantic relationships. Hendrick & Hendrick (2002) proposed a theory and a measure capturing the lay perceptions of the love-sex link. The PLSS (Perceptions of Love and Sex Scale) comprises four themes/subscales, Love is Most Important, Love Comes Before Sex (“love themes”), Sex is Declining, Sex Demonstrates Love (“sex themes”). We examined the validity of PLSS in the Greek context, across two age-groups, young (18-40) and middle adults (41-65), and whether the themes predicted relationship satisfaction and duration. Greek participant (N=631) in romantic relationships responded online to the PLSS and other measures of relationship constructs (e.g., passionate, companionate love, sex, satisfaction). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the PLSS maintained its fourfold structure. The PLSS sexual themes correlated more strongly with relationship constructs than love themes. Young adult women stated that Sex was Declining less than middle adult ones and reported shorter relationships than men. Irrespective of age-group, Sex is (not) Declining, Love is Most Important, and Sex Demonstrates Love predicted satisfaction. Love Comes Before Sex and Sex is Declining predicted duration among young adults. Sex is Declining was the only predictor of duration among middle adults. Our findings suggest that love and sex work in tandem but sexual themes are more important for the Greek population. The study corroborated the validity of PLSS in the Greek context, demonstrating its sensitivity to capture cultural developments in conceptions of intimacy.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between burnout and cognitive functioning. The associations of depression, anxiety and family support with burnout and cognitive functioning were also examined both independently and as potential moderators of the burnout–cognitive functioning relationship. Seven different cognitive tasks were administered to employees of the general working population and five cognitive domains were assessed, i.e., executive functions, working memory, memory (episodic, visuospatial, prospective), attention/speed of processing and visuospatial abilities. Burnout, depression, anxiety and family support were assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Family Support Scale respectively. In congruence with the first and fourth (partially) Hypotheses, burnout and perceived family support are significantly associated with some aspects of cognitive functioning. Moreover, in line with the third Hypothesis, perceived family support is inversely related to burnout. However, in contrast to the second and fourth Hypotheses, depression, anxiety and perceived family support do not moderate the burnout–cognitive functioning relationship. Additional results reveal positive associations between burnout depression and anxiety. Overall findings suggest that cognitive deficits, depression and anxiety appear to be common in burnout while they underpin the role of perceived family support in both mental health and cognitive functioning. Implications for practice are discussed.

This study investigated working memory skills in a small group of 13 nine-year-old Greek children facing reading difficulties and a group of 14 age matched typical Greek readers. The children were assessed on working memory tasks measuring separately the four components of the working memory model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974) as revised by Baddeley (2000): the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer and central executive. Both groups completed tests of accuracy of reading, speed of reading and text understanding. The children with reading difficulties performed significantly more poorly than typical readers on all aspects of working memory apart from visual-spatial short-term memory. These results indicate a similar verbal working memory impairment in Greek children with reading difficulties as in their English peers, despite the fact that they are learning to read a language with a transparent rather than an opaque orthography.

Episodic buffer (EB), a key component of working memory, seems to have a rather complicated function as part of binding processes. Recent papers on the field claim that binding processes of working memory (WM) are assisted by attention and executive functions. On the same page, vascular pathology is gaining more ground as the main underlying cause for many brain pathologies. Hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, lack of exercise and smoking are the most common risk factors that people of all ages suffer from and constitute the main vascular risk factors responsible for a possible decline in executive functions and attention. Thus, this research is an attempt to examine the relation between the binding functions of WM and the existence of vascular risk factors via a computerized test focusing on feature binding. The study comprised adults (n = 229) with and without vascular risk factors. The main tools used were a biomarker questionnaire and a feature binding test (FBT). The results showed that participants who report suffering from one or more vascular risk factors had significantly lower performance on specific subtasks of the FBT in comparison to the participants who were healthy. This allows us to assume that there might be a positive association between feature binding and a vascular risk profile in adults, and such a test could be a useful diagnostic tool for early cognitive impairment due to incipient vascular pathology.

Objective The aim of the present study is to provide further insight into semantic processing in Working Memory (WM) in two amnesic patients with extensive medial temporal lobe (MTL) by adopting a short length word-lists recall task. Background It is still unclear whether the medial temporal lobe structures and especially the hippocampus is recruited in semantic processing in the context of WM. Materials & methods Two severely amnesic patients with extensive MTL damage due to herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) and a control group ( n = 36) underwent an experimental task involving the immediate free recall of 9 word-lists in three different conditions: 1. semantically related words clustered according to semantic category (SRC), 2. semantically related words non-clustered (SRnC), 3. semantically unrelated words (SU). Additionally, standard cognitive measures were administered [Digit Span Forward & Backward, Greek Verbal Learning Test (GVRT), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), Logical Memory I & II (LM-I & LM-II) of Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS)]. Results Both patients obtained normal performance in WM tests (Digit Span Forward & Backward), but were impaired in GVRT, VFT, LM-I and LM-II. With regard to the word-list task, the number of words recalled by both patients’ did not differ from controls. However, semantic facilitation effects were not recorded in patients’ performance for the SRC and SRnC conditions (SRC = SRnR = SU), unlike controls (SRC > SRnC > SU). Conclusions Our results suggest that the effects of semantic facilitation in short length word-lists recall are diminished to a certain degree in HSE patients that suffer from MTL damage.

Olfactory impairment in older adults is associated with cognitive decline. This study describes the development of a Brief Odor Detection Test (B-ODT), and its pilot administration in community-dwelling older adults. The study aimed at examining whether the test could differentiate older adults with very mild cognitive impairment from their cognitively healthy counterparts. The sample consisted of 34 older adults (22 women), aged from 65 to 87 years. Participants were divided into two groups according to their general cognitive functioning. Odor detection was measured via vanillin solutions at the following concentrations: 150 mg/L, 30 mg/L, 15 mg/L, 3 mg/L, and .03 mg/L. The first condition of the test involved a scale administration of vanillin solutions. The second condition examined the change in air odour and it required vanillin solution of 30 mg/L and a metric ruler of 30 cm. The examiner had to place the solution at a specific distance point from each nostril. Odour identification sensitivity was secondarily measured. The results showed statistically significant differences in odour detection threshold between the two groups. In the unirhinal testing, left nostril differences of the two groups were definite. Hence, the B-ODT seems a promising instrument for very early cognitive impairment screening in older adult population.

Background Cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) have been previously correlated with T2 lesion load (Τ2LL) in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). It is currently unknown, however, whether ERPs also correlate with brain atrophy or the presence of T1 hypointense lesions (“black holes”) which reflect tissue destruction and axonal loss. The primary aim of the current study is to explore the effect of neuroradiological parameters such as brain atrophy, T1 and T2 lesion load on auditory ERPs in MS patients. In addition, we correlated cognitive impairment with neurophysiological (ERP) and neuroradiological (MRI) variables and investigated whether a combination of ERP and MRI parameters is capable of distinguishing patients suffering from secondary progressive (SP), primary progressive (PP) and relapsing-remitting (RR) MS. Materials and methods The study sample consisted of fifty nine MS patients (mean age±SD: 37.82±1.38 years; average disease duration: 6.76±5.3 years) and twenty six age-matched controls (mean age±SD: 41.42±15.39 years). The patients’ EDSS and NRS scores were 3.77±2.14 (range: 1–7.5) and 75.88±11.99 (range: 42–94) respectively. ERPs were recorded using the auditory “odd-ball” paradigm. T1 and T2 lesions were automatically segmented using an edge-finding tool and total lesion volumes were calculated. MRI measures of brain atrophy included third ventricle width (THIRDVW) and the ratio of mid-sagittal corpus callosum area to the mid-sagittal intracranial skull surface area (CC/MISS). Statistical analysis was performed using multiple regression, principal component (PCA) and discriminant analysis. Results T1 lesion load emerged as the most significant predictor of P300 and N200 latency. The rest of the endogenous ERPs parameters (P300 amplitude, N200 amplitude) were not significantly correlated with the MRI variables. PCA of pooled neuroradiological and neurophysiological markers suggested that four components accounted for 64.6% of the total variability. Discriminant analysis based on ERP & MRI markers classified correctly 79.63% of patients in RR, PP and SP subgroups. Conclusion T1 lesion load is the most significant MRI correlate of auditory ERPs in MS patients. Importantly, ERPs in combination with MRI variables can be usefully employed for distinguishing patients with different subtypes of MS.

The aim of the present study was the qualitative comparison of working memory capacity of young children and older adults through the investigation of the latent structure stability or change in Working Memory capacity (WM) in childhood and aging, using Multiple Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA).The sample consisted of 62 kindergarten and 56 elementary school students (age range: 4-8 years) and 52 young-old adults and 54 old-old adults (age range: 60-94 years). Adults were asked to complete the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15) as screening tests. The children were examined via the Raven Colored Progressive Matrix (CMP) test for the same reason. WM was examined via four measures of Working Memory Test Battery for Children (WMTB-C).MGCFA applied to the data of the kindergarten students' subsample, elementary school students' subsample, young-old and old-old adults' subsamples as well as of older adults with low (0-9 years of education) educational level. Initially, through MGCFA, four "models" were confirmed, one for each age-related subsample, and they were different from each other. However, when the same method was applied exclusively to young-old and old-old adults with low educational level, the models that emerged were similar to the kindergarten students' model.When we "keep" the educational level equal (low) for all, the hypothesis of retrogenesis is confirmed. Cognitive reserve appears to be protective, keeping differentiated WM's components in every age group other than that of kindergarten students. The results support the "retrogenetic" hypothesis, mainly due to the finding of a delay in WM components' development in the group of kindergarten students, and their dedifferentiation in the low-educated young-old and old-old adults.

Elena-Ioanna Nazlidou,1 Despina Moraitou,1 Demetrios Natsopoulos,2 Vasileios Papaliagkas,1 Elvira Masoura,1 Georgia Papantoniou3 1Lab of Psychology, Department of Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Hellas, Greece; 2School of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus; 3Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Hellas, Greece Introduction: Mental verbs denote inner mental states and are an important link between language and Theory of Mind ability conceptualized as mental state understanding. Non-factive mental verbs denote an obligation or intention and constitute a discrete class of mental verbs which are characterized by their social aspect. This study aimed to examine adults’ ability to understand non-factive mental verbs with the social aspect as compared to cognitive factive mental verbs which denote a true event. Methods: A total of 94 participants, aged 18–95 years, were examined using two tasks measuring non-factive and factive verb processing, respectively, and a working memory test. Results: The results indicated that non-factive verbs process is at a significantly lower level than those of cognitive factives. Conclusion: The inspection of the way adapted to process the non-factive verbs denoting obligation or intention, as well as the confirmation of a unifactorial structure of the task developed to measure non-factives’ processing, showed that adults have a common pattern of non-factive mental verb understanding, which is based on heuristic ways of thinking and is not affected by working memory capacity and age. Keywords: affirmation/negation, cognitive factive mental verbs, heuristic ways of thinking, non-factive mental verbs, verbs denoting obligation or intention

The aim of the study was to examine the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) and Video Games (VG) as cognitive training tools in community dwelling older adults. A total of 19 older adults aged from 65 to 79 years comprised the sample of the study. According to the intervention program they were submitted to, participants were separated into two groups. The first one was trained using an adaptation of virtual reality platform (FitForAll), developed to train specific cognitive functions (n = 10). Contrary to the above the second group was trained in a go-kart-style video game (Super Mario Kart) on the Wii console (n = 9). There wasn’t significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, gender and educational level. In both groups the intervention consisted of 18 sessions of about 40’ each, over a six-week period (3 times per week). Specific cognitive functions and state affect were measured before and immediately after training, as well as one month after the intervention. The findings revealed participants’ improved performance in executive functions, after being trained in both intervention programs. However, it has been observed that the participants trained using VG had been better at maintaining their improved performance even after the end of the intervention program. VG also seemed to enhance in the long term participants’ positive affect.

Summary The aim of the present study was to explore the psychometric properties of the observer-based Working Memory Rating Scale (WMRS) tool, in a sample of 6- to 12-year-old Greek primary school children. Results established a good internal consistency; appropriate factorial, criterion-related and convergent validity; and diagnostic utility of the scale in the Greek population. However, the relationship between teacher's ratings and the objective assessment of children's working memory abilities was mediated by children's vocabulary knowledge, suggesting that verbal skills can constitute a form of bias in this particular educational environment. In conclusion, the WMRS can provide a reliable assessment of children's working memory capacity in Greek schools. Nevertheless, characteristics of the child such as verbal abilities could bias teacher's judgments. Therefore, the WMRS in Greek schools should be used as an initial screener, and objective working memory measures should be included in the assessment if warranted. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present research investigated the relative contributions of verbal short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) to vocabulary development in the early years among Greek-speaking children. Participants were 5.5-, 7.5-, 8.5- and 9.5-year-old (N = 216) native speakers of Greek, a language differing from English in which most investigations have been conducted. Children were assessed with a receptive vocabulary task, four verbal STM measures (word, digit, and non-word list recall, as well as word list matching), and three verbal WM tasks (listening, counting, and backward digit recall). Results offer support to the view that both STM and WM influence vocabulary development in early stages. Vocabulary was associated with verbal STM at 7.5 and 8.5 years, but only with verbal WM at 5.5 years. Associations declined with age (by 9.5 years), earlier than in English-speaking children. Findings are discussed in relation to Greek language characteristics, demonstrating the importance of cross-cultural investiga...

Castel and colleagues (Percept Psychophys 65(6):970-981, 2003) proposed that visuospatial working memory is needed to retain and update the irrelevant but attended location in an inhibition of return (IOR) procedure. In a series of three experiments, we re-examined this hypothesis by loading visuospatial working memory and manipulating the timing of encoding. When the visuospatial memory items were presented right after the cue, as in Castel et al. (Percept Psychophys 65(6):970-981, 2003), we replicated the lack of IOR in the dual-task condition (Experiment 1). However, when we presented the visuospatial memory items before the spatial cue, to control for retroactive interference in encoding, we found robust IOR effects (Experiment 2); the effect remained strong even when participants were prevented from using verbal labels to rehearse the memory material (Experiment 3). We conclude that IOR does not seem to depend on retaining the position of the irrelevant cue in visuospatial working memory.

Aim This study investigated the relationship between working memory (WM) and reading abilities among students with visual impairment (VI). Seventy-five students with VI (visually impairment and blindness), aged 10–15 years old participated in the study, of whom 44 were visually impaired and 31 were blind. Methods The participants’ reading ability was assessed with the standardized reading ability battery Test-A (Padeliadu & Antoniou, 2008) and their verbal working memory ability was assessed with the listening recall task from the Working Memory Test Battery for Children (Pickering et al., 2001). Results-Implications : Data analysis indicated a strong correlation between verbal WM and decoding, reading comprehension and overall reading ability among the participants with VI, while no correlation was found between reading fluency and verbal WM. The present study points out the important role of verbal WM in reading among students who are VI and carries implications for the education of those individuals.

The contributions of phonological short-term memory and existing foreign vocabulary knowledge to the learning of new words in a second language were compared in a sample of 40 Greek children studying English at school. The children's speed of learning new English words in a paired-associate learning task was strongly influenced by their current English vocabulary, but was independent of phonological memory skill, indexed by nonword repetition ability. However, phonological memory performance was closely linked to English vocabulary scores. The findings suggest that in learners with considerable familiarity with a second language, foreign vocabulary acquisition is mediated largely by use of existing knowledge representations.

This study investigated links between short-term memory skills and children’s abilities to learn the vocabulary of a foreign language taught in school. Forty-® ve Greek children who were learning English as a foreign language were assessed on their short-term memory in both languages, and on their knowledge of both native and foreign vocabulary. Knowledge of native and foreign vocabulary shared highly signi® cant associations with the phonological short-term memory measures. However, vocabulary scores in the two languages shared a close relationship that could not be explained exclusively in terms of phonological loop capacity. Implications of these ® ndings for theoretical accounts of how words are learned in the native and foreign language are considered. Cette e tude explore les liens entre les habilete s de me moire aA court terme et la capacite des enfants aA apprendre le vocabulaire d’une langue e trangeA re. Quarante-cinq enfants grecs ont e te e value s au plan de leur me moire aA court terme et de leur connaissance du vocabulaire dans les deux langues (grec et anglais). La connaissance du vocabulaire dans les deux langues est fortement associe e aux mesures de me moire a court terme phonologique. Cependant, meA me si la relation entre les deux scores de connaissance du vocabulaire est treA s forte, celle-ci ne peut eA tre explique e exclusivement en terme de capacite de la boucle phonologique. La discussion porte sur les implications de ces re sultats pour des hypotheA ses the oriques expliquant l’apprentissage des mots dans une langue maternelle et dans une langue e trangeA re.

The aim of the present study was the comparison of the general cognitive ability (g) between young children and older adults through the investigation of the latent structure qualitative changes in [R] Educational Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) from age to age, using Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) and testing a conventional unidimensional model.The sample consisted of 42 kindergarten and 56 elementary school students (age range: 5-8 years) and 118 new-old adults and 27 old-old adults (age range: 61-88 years). The participants' cognitive abilities were examined in: (a) the Raven's Educational CPM test, and (b) the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).CFA applied to data of the total sample, elementary school students subsample and new-old adults subsample, indicating that individual variability across [R] CPM measured variables (total scores for each of the three sets) can be modeled by one latent variable (a single underlying factor). The same pattern of [R] CPM latent structure was not verified for the subsamples of kindergarten students and old-old adults, since the variance of a single underlying factor was not found to be statistically significant.The results support the existence of a different factor structure in [R] Educational CPM between first- to second- grade elementary school students and new-old adults, on the one hand, and kindergarten students and old-old adults, on the other. This difference could possibly reflect the underdevelopment of inductive reasoning and executive functioning in the group of kindergarten students and the disorganization of them in the group of old-old adults.