Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-27T09:57:58.732Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Controlled and automatic information processing in senile dementia: a review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

A. F. Jorm
A. F. Jorm*
Affiliation:
NH and MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr A. F. Jorm, NH and MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The evidence on cognitive decline in senile dementia is reviewed with respect to the distinction between controlled and automatic processing. It is argued that controlled processing, which requires the attentional resources of the individual, declines in early senile dementia. However, automatic processing, which does not require attentional resources, is well maintained until late in the disorder. Implications of this view are drawn for the development of effective screening instruments which can be used for the early detection of dementia in the general population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 1986 , pp. 77 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alexander, D. A. (1973). Some tests of intelligence and learning for elderly psychiatric patients: a validation study. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 12, 188–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anthony, J. C., Le Resche, L., Niaz, U., Von Korff, M. R. & Folstein, M. F. (1982). Limits of the ‘Mini-Mental State’ as a screening test for dementia and delirium among hospital patients. Psychological Medicine 12, 397–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. D. (1982). Domains of recollection. Psychological Review 89, 708–729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, M. G. & Lawson, J. S. (1968). Nominal aphasia in dementia. British Journal of Psychiatry 114, 1351–1356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baron, J. & Treiman, R. (1980). Some problems in the study of differences in cognitive processes. Memory and Cognition 8, 313–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayles, K. A. & Boone, D. R. (1982). The potential of language tasks for identifying senile dementia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 47, 210–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bayles, K. A. & Tomoeda, C. K. (1983). Confrontation naming impairment in dementia. Brain and Language 19, 98–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. & McNeill, D. (1966). The ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 5, 325–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brull, J., Wertheimer, J. & Haller, E. (1979). Evolutive profiles in senile dementia: A psychological and neuropsychological longitudinal study. In Brain Function in Old Age (ed. Hoffmeister, F. and Muller, C.), pp. 188–205. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caird, W. K. (1965). Memory disorder and psychological test performance in aged psychiatric patients. Diseases of the Nervous System 26, 499–505.Google ScholarPubMed
Caird, W. K., Sanderson, R. E. & Inglis, J. (1962). Cross-validation of a learning test for use with elderly psychiatric patients. Journal of Mental Science 108, 368–370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chapman, L. J. & Chapman, J. P. (1973). Problems in the measurement of cognitive deficit. Psychological Bulletin 79, 380–385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, B. & Bickel, H. (1984). Population screening and the early detection of dementing disorders in old age: a review. Psychological Medicine 14, 81–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crookes, T. G. (1974). Indices of early dementia on WAIS. Psychological Reports 34, 734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drachman, D. A. (1983). How normal aging relates to dementia: a critique and classification. In Aging of the Brain (ed. Algeri, S., Gershon, S., Grimm, V. E. and Toffano, G.), pp. 19–31. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Fillenbaum, G. G. (1980). Comparison of two brief tests of organic brain impairment, the MSQ and the Short Portable MSQ. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 28, 381–384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fisk, A. D. & Schneider, W. (1984). Memory as a function of attention, level of processing, and automatization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 10, 181–197.Google ScholarPubMed
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975). ‘Mini-Mental State’ a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research 12, 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuld, P. A., Katzman, R., Davies, P. & Terry, R. D. (1981). Intrusions as a sign of Alzheimer dementia chemical and pathological verification. Annals of Neurology 11, 155–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gewirth, L. R., Shindler, A. G. & Hier, D. B. (1984). Altered patterns of word associations in dementia and aphasia. Brain and Language 21, 307–317.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, A. J. (1981). A further analysis of memory loss in dementia and depression in the elderly. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 20, 179–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gurland, B., Golden, R. & Challop, J. (1982). Unidimensional and multidimensional approaches to the differentiation of depression and dementia in the elderly. In. Alzheimer's Disease: A Report of Progress in Research (ed. Corkin, S, Davis, K. L., Growdon, J. J., Usdin, E. and Wurtman, R. J.) (Ageing, Vol. 19), pp. 119–125. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Hasher, L. & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 108, 356–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, A. S. (1983). The coming epidemic of dementia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 17, 117–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henderson, A. S. & Huppert, F. A. (1984). The problem of mild dementia. Psychological Medicine 14, 5–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hopkins, B. & Roth, M. (1953). Psychological test performance in patients over 60. II: Paraphrenia, arteriosclerotic psychosis and acute confusion. Journal of Mental Science 99, 451–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horn, J. L. (1976). Human abilities: a review of research and theory in the early 1970s. Annual Review of Psychology 27, 437–485.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunt, E. (1978). Mechanics of verbal ability. Psychological Review 85, 109–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, E. (1983). On the nature of intelligence. Science 219, 141–146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inglis, J. (1958). Psychological investigations of cognitive deficit in elderly psychiatric patients Psychological Bulletin 55, 197–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inglis, J. (1959). Learning, retention, and conceptual usage in elderly patients with memory disorder. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59, 210–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Irving, G., Robinson, R. A. & McAdam, W. (1970). The validity of some cognitive tests in the diagnosis of dementia. British Journal of Psychology 117, 149–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobs, J W., Bernhard, M. R., Delgado, A. & Strain, J. J. (1977). Screening for organic mental syndromes in the medically ill. Annals of Internal Medicine 86, 40–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jorm, A. F. & Share, D. L. (1983). Phonological recoding and reading acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics 4, 103–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahn, R. L., Goldfarb, A. I., Pollack, M. & Peck, A. (1960). Brief objective measures for the determination of mental status in the aged. American Journal of Psychiatry 117, 326–328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaszniak, A. W., Garron, D. C. & Fox, J. (1979). Differential effects of age and cerebral atrophy upon span of immediate recall and paired-associate learning in older patients suspected of dementia. Cortex 15, 285–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendrick, D. C. (1982). Why assess the aged? A clinical psychologist's view. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 21, 47–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendrick, D. C. & Post, F. (1967). Differences in cognitive status between healthy, psychiatrically ill, and diffusely brain-damaged elderly subjects. British Journal of Psychiatry 113, 75–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendrick, D. C., Parboosingh, R-C. & Post, F. (1965). A Synonym Learning Test for use with elderly psychiatric subjects: a validation study. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 4, 63–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirshner, H. S., Webb, W. G. & Kelly, M P. (1984). The naming disorder of dementia. Neuropsychologia 22, 23–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
La Berge, D. & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology 6, 293–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawson, J. S. & Barker, M. G. (1968). The assessment of nominal dysphasia in dementia: the use of reaction-time measures. British Journal of Medical Psychology 41, 411–414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1971). On the nature of the memory disorder in presenile dementia. Neuropsychologia 9, 75–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1973). Short- and long-term memory in patients with presenile dementia (Alzheimer's disease). Psychological Medicine 3, 221–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, E. (1975). Impaired recall and memory disturbance in presenile dementia. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 14, 73–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1978). Retrieval from long-term memory in presenile dementia: two tests of an hypothesis. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 17, 143–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1981). The nature of cognitive deficit in senile dementia. In Clinical Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease and Senile Dementia (ed. Miller, N. E. and Cohen, G. D.) (Aging, Vol. 15), pp. 103–119. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Miller, E. (1984). Verbal fluency as a function of a measure of verbal intelligence and in relation to different types of cerebral pathology. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 23, 53–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. & Hague, F. (1975). Some characteristics of verbal behaviour in presenile dementia. Psychological Medicine 5, 255–259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. & Lewis, P. (1977). Recognition memory in elderly patients with depression and dementia: a signal detection analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 86, 84–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, R., Wheatley, J. & Britton, P. (1983). Retrieval from long-term memory in senile dementia; cued recall revisited. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 22, 141–142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. E. & McKenna, P. (1975). The use of current reading ability in the assessment of dementia. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 14, 259–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. E. & O'Connell, A. (1978). Dementia: the estimation of premorbid intelligence levels using the New Adult Reading Test. Cortex 14, 234–244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfeiffer, E. (1975). A Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire for the assessment of organic brain deficit in elderly patients. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 23, 433–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabbitt, P. (1982). How to assess the aged? An experimental psychologist's view. Some comments on Dr Kendrick's paper. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 21, 55–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rochford, G. (1971). A study of naming errors in dysphasic and in demented patients. Neuropsychologia 9, 437–443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosen, W. G. (1983). Neuropsychological investigation of memory, visuoconstructional, visuoperceptual, and language abilities in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. In The Dementias (ed. Mayeux, R. and Rosen, W. G.) (Advances in Neurology, Vol. 38), pp. 65–73. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Ruddle, H. V. & Bradshaw, C. M. (1982). On the estimation of premorbid intellectual functioning: validation of Nelson & McKenna's formula, and some new normative data. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 21, 159–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rundus, D. & Atkinson, R. C. (1970). Rehearsal processes in free recall: a procedure for direct observation. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 9, 99–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, W. & Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention. Psychological Review 84, 1–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, M. F., Marin, O. S. M. & Saffran, E. M. (1979). Dissociations of language function in dementia: a case study. Brain and Language 7, 277–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shiffrin, R. M. & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review 84, 127–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, B. E. & Henderson, G. (1976). Some quantitative cerebral findings in normal and demented old people. In Neurobiology of Aging (ed. Terry, R. D. and Gershon, S.) (Aging, Vol. 3), pp. 183–204. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1958). The Measurement and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence (4th edn). Williams and Wilkins: New York.Google Scholar
Weingartner, H., Kaye, W., Smallberg, S. A., Ebert, M. H., Gillin, J. C. & Sitaram, N. (1981). Memory failures in progressive idiopathic dementia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 90, 187–196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitaker, H. (1976). A case of the isolation of the language function. In Studies in Neurolinguistics, Vol. 2 (ed. Whitaker, H. and Whitaker, H. A.), pp. 1–58. Academic Press: New York.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. S., Kaszniak, A. W. & Fox, J. H. (1981). Remote memory in senile dementia. Cortex 17, 41–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, R. S., Kaszniak, A. W., Bacon, L. D., Fox, J. H. & Kelly, M. P. (1982). Facial recognition memory in dementia. Cortex 18, 329–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, R. S., Bacon, L. D., Fox, J. H. & Kaszniak, A. W. (1983 a). Primary memory and secondary memory in dementia of the Alzheimer type. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology 5, 337–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, R. S., Bacon, L. D., Fox, J. H., Kramer, R. L. & Kaszniak, A. W. (1983 b). Word frequency effect and recognition memory in dementia of the Alzheimer type. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology 5, 97–104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed