Should I trust you? Learning and memory of social interactions in dementia

Publication date: Available online 12 August 2017 Source:Neuropsychologia Author(s): Stephanie Wong, Muireann Irish, Claire O’Callaghan, Fiona Kumfor, Greg Savage, John R. Hodges, Olivier Piguet, Michael Hornberger Social relevance has an enhancing effect on learning and subsequent memory retrieval. The ability to learn from and remember social interactions may impact on susceptibility to financial exploitation, which is elevated in individuals with dementia. The current study aimed to investigate learning and memory of social interactions, the relationship between performance and financial vulnerability and the neural substrates underpinning performance in 14 Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) patients and 20 age-matched healthy controls. On a “trust game” task, participants invested virtual money with counterparts who acted either in a trustworthy or untrustworthy manner over repeated interactions. A non-social “lottery” condition was also included. Participants’ learning of trust/distrust responses and subsequent memory for the counterparts and nature of the interactions was assessed. Carer-rated profiles of financial vulnerability were also collected. Relative to controls, both patient groups showed attenuated learning of trust/distrust responses, and lower overall memory for social interactions. Despite poor learning performance, both AD and bvFTD patients showed better memory of social compared to no...

Source: Neuropsychologia - August 17, 2017 Category: Neurology Source Type: research