A Real-world What-Where-When Memory Test

Summary

The Real-World What-Where-When memory test is a novel episodic memory test, in which participants need to recall which objects have been hidden in which locations on which of two distinct occasions. It is easy to run and is sensitive to normal cognitive aging.

Abstract

Episodic memory is a complex memory system which allows recall and mental re-experience of previous episodes from one's own life. Real-life episodic memories are about events in their spatiotemporal context and are typically visuospatial, rather than verbal. Yet often, tests of episodic memory use verbal material to be recalled (word lists, stories). The Real-World What-Where-When memory test requires participants to hide a total of 16 different objects in 16 different locations over two temporal occasions, 2 h apart. Another two hours later, they are then asked to recall which objects (What) they had hidden in which locations (Where) and on which of the two occasions (When). In addition to counting the number of correctly recalled complete what-where-when combinations, this task can also be used to test real-world spatial memory and object memory. This task is sensitive to normal cognitive aging, and correlates well with performance on other episodic memory tasks, while at the same time providing more ecological validity and being cheap and easy to run.

Introduction

Episodic memory is memory for unique events from one's own past that are experienced as a reliving of the original event (mental time travel)^1,2. It is also one of the first types of memory to be affected in the early stages of many forms of dementia^3,4. The medial temporal lobe, and more specifically the hippocampus, is believed to be an important structure in the processing of episodic memories⁵, and therefore any conditions that affect hippocampal function, like aging and many mood disorders, are also believed to affect e....

Protocol

This protocol was approved by Newcastle University's Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee (approval number 515_1).

1. Preparation for the study

1. Before running the study, gather 20 small, easily identified/described objects, e.g.,
   A tea light
   A toy digger
   A toy frog
   A clothing hook
   A spoon
   A set of keys
   A button
   A lip balm
   A toy snowman
   A bottle cap
   A die
   A lighter
   A comb
   A wrist band
   A padlock
   A butterfly pin
   A ruler
   A guitar plectrum
   A battery
   A USB stick
2. Randomly select 8 of these objects for the first....

Results

Older people (65+) remember fewer complete What-Where-When combinations than do younger people (18-25; Χ²(1) = 9.5; p = 0.002; Figure 3). Note that although as a group, older people perform worse than younger people, there are some older people who perform as well or better than some young people. This variation may be informative if it is predictive of other conditions.

One can also inve.......

Discussion

The data show that performance on other tasks which are supposed to measure episodic memory predicts performance on the Real-World What-Where-When memory task as well. However, these correlations are likely to represent a shared subset of cognitive abilities used by the different tasks. The Real-World What-Where-When memory task has the advantage over these other tasks in that it tests people's memory for two actual events which happened in a real spatio-temporal context. Unlike asking people about events from their .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Example Materials			Any 20 easy-to-name small objects will do.
1 tea light
1 toy digger
1 toy frog
1 clothing hook
1 spoon
1 set of keys
1 button
1 lip balm
1 toy snowman
1 bottle cap
1 die
1 lighter
1 comb
1 wrist band
1 padlock
1 butterfly pin
1 ruler
1 guitar plectrum
1 battery
1 USB stick