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The recall of dementia‐related and neutral words by people with dementia: The ironic process of thought suppression
Author(s) -
Cheston Richard,
Dodd Emily,
Hart India,
Christopher Gary
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.5083
Subject(s) - dementia , psychology , recall , cognition , distress , population , developmental psychology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , cognitive psychology , medicine , disease , environmental health , pathology
Objective Thought suppression may not work effectively when people have a cognitive impairment. This study tests whether participants with dementia showed lessened or enhanced recall and recognition of dementia‐related words compared with a control population. Methods Fifty participants living with dementia with mild levels of cognitive impairment and a control group of 52 participants without a diagnosis of dementia took part. A list of 12 words, composed of six dementia‐related and six neutral words matched for frequency and length, was read out on four occasions, with the word order being varied for each presentation. Recognition was also assessed. Results There was an interaction between word‐type and participant group at both recall and recognition. While control participants recalled more neutral than dementia‐related words, there was no difference for dementia participants. However, dementia participants recognised a significantly higher proportion of the dementia‐related words, while there was no difference in word‐type recognition for control participants. Conclusions This study adapts a social psychological paradigm to explore whether an important psychological mechanism for reducing distress can be affected by cognitive impairment. Our findings suggest that for people living with dementia, thought suppression may be either ineffective in reducing conscious awareness of distal threats or operate in an ironic fashion. While threatening proximal material may be repressed from awareness, distal threats may return into implicit awareness. This casts new light on research and has clinical implications.