Errors in short-term memory: a comparison among three positional models in patients with dementia and normal subjects

ABSTRACT

The present study was meant to investigate the types of error committed by dementia patients and normal subjects during recall under three different models. For this purpose three groups of subjects [N=81] were selected. Demented patients were referred from neurological and psychiatric wards of different hospitals of Peshawar. Mini Mental State Examination [MMSE] was used to determine the intensity of dementia. The score obtained on MMSE helped in the bifurcation of the patients into two groups i.e. severe and moderate dementia. Third group [control group] was matched on age, gender, education, and socio-economic status from normal population. Indigenous lists of visual clips based on relative, absolute and temporal coding of position were used to measure the types of error. One-way ANOVA was applied and the differences in types of errors among three positional models by patients with severe and moderate dementia and normal subjects were discussed. The present research highlights four types of error which are omission, intrusion, transposition and confusion