Effect of conceptual and lexical errorless versus trial-and-error learning in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

ABSTRACT

Errorless learning (EL), involving presenting the target information during encoding, is generally considered effective for teaching information to memory-impaired populations. However, evidence suggests that trial-and-error learning (TEL) can benefit healthy older adults’ memory when guesses are conceptually related to the target. To determine whether TEL can benefit persons with mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), 24 participants with aMCI were given cues associated with nine target words. Half the sample received Conceptual cues (e.g., “beverage”) and the other half received Lexical cues (e.g., SC_______). All underwent an EL study phase, in which the target was presented immediately after the cue, and a TEL phase, in which they made guesses from the cue before the target was presented. Cued recall was tested immediately and 24 h later. At immediate but not 24-h delayed recall, EL targets were better remembered than TEL targets in both conditions. Verbal memory performance appeared to explain why certain individuals benefited more from EL relative to TEL, while semantic memory performance appeared to explain why some people benefited more from conceptual than lexical errors. Thus, EL-based memory intervention for aMCI is likely to be more effective than TEL, particularly to the extent that semantic or episodic memory is affected.

KEYWORDS:

• Memory
• Mild cognitive impairment
• Errorless learning
• Semantic memory

Acknowledgements

We thank the participants who volunteered their time for this study. We also are grateful to Mariam Sidrak for scheduling and testing participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Brandy L. Callahan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5617-2379

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [grant number MOP 124484] awarded to N.D.A.