The Retrograde Memory for News Events Test (RM-NET) and the relationship between news event memory and performance on standard neuropsychological tests
- Andrew T.J. Cawley-Bennett1,
- Jennifer C. Frascino2,3,
- Isabel E. Asp3,
- Shahrokh Golshan2,3,
- Mark W. Bondi2,3,
- Zhishang Luo4 and
- Christine N. Smith2,3,5
- 1Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA
- 2Department of Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California 92093, USA
- 3Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California 92161, USA
- 4Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California 92093, USA
- 5Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA
- Corresponding author: cnsmith{at}ucsd.edu
Abstract
Novel tests of semantic memory (SM)—for example, memory for news events (NE; news facts) or famous personalities—are useful for estimating the severity of retrograde amnesia. Individuals with mild cognitive impairment exhibit relatively intact SM/language on traditional neuropsychological tests but exhibit consistent impairment on novel tests of SM, suggesting novel SM tests are dissimilar from traditional SM tests. To identify the relationship between NE memory and traditional cognitive measures, older adults (N = 51) completed a traditional neuropsychological battery and the Retrograde Memory News Events Test (RM-NET; a new test that robustly measures NE memory across the adult life span with high temporal resolution), and the relationship between performance on these tests was examined. Total RM-NET scores were more closely aligned with episodic memory scores than SM scores. The strength of the association between NE scores and episodic memory scores decreased as the age of NE memory increased. Tests of news events appear to reflect performance on traditional tests of episodic memory rather than SM, especially when recent news events are tested.
Footnotes
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[Supplemental material is available for this article.]
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Article is online at http://www.learnmem.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/lm.053571.122.
- Received February 10, 2022.
- Accepted July 28, 2022.
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