Of the relationships

in which self-generated words were b

Of the relationships

in which self-generated words were better remembered than passively read words, we observed qualitatively that words from the category member relationship resulted in the best memory performance, followed by synonym, PS-341 cell line opposite, and associate in the generate condition (Fig. 1B). Words from the rhyme relationship displayed the worst memory performance. This is consistent with the results of the study by Doré et al. (2009), which found that healthy controls remembered more words that were encoded in a semantic context than those that were Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical encoded in a phonological context using both free and cued recall. Additionally, Kircher et al. (2011) found that subjects were more successful in generating words in the same category of a target word than words that rhymed with a target word. Furthermore, Slamecka and Graf (1978) also found that rhyming word pairs showed the overall lowest recognition performance. Of interest, memory performance was similarly ordered for both the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical generate and read conditions; words of the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical category relationship resulted in the highest memory performance, followed by synonym, associate or opposite, and rhyme (Fig. 2B). This may suggest that the techniques employed in

recognizing words are similar for read and self-generated words. However, our study was not designed to place memory performance in order by linguistic relationship, so these observations Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical should be interpreted with caution. Overall, our study showed that category members, synonyms, opposites, and associates were relationships that promoted the highest memory performance. Within each of these relationships, self-generated words were better remembered than passively read words.

Self-generation of words from semantic word-pair relationships, such as categories, synonyms, opposites, and associates, may improve memory performance. This could have applications in many aspects of memory enhancement. For example, the technique of self-generating information, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and applying specific linguistic relationships, could benefit study methods in vocabulary and language learning. These results could also contribute to the development of language and memory therapies for patients with neurological disorders if the results were replicated in patient populations such as patients with traumatic MTMR9 brain injury (Schefft et al. 2008a), seizure disorders (Schefft et al. 2008b), Alzheimer’s disease (Multhaup and Balota 1997; Barrett et al. 2000), multiple sclerosis (Chiaravalloti and Deluca 2002), Parkinson’s disease (Barrett et al. 2000), schizophrenia (Vinogradov et al. 1997), and lobectomy (Smith 1996). We note that the benefits to memory found in the present study are limited to cued recognition memory.

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