A Normative Study of the Content- and Context-Related Memory Performances on the Modified Family Pictures Subtest in Taiwan Healthy Adults
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Lai, Ya-Mei
Abstract
Background: Both content and context memory play important roles in daily life while few past studies focused on the latter one and their task materials were lack of ecological validity. The Family Pictures subtest is an available tool for measuring three major real-life information (character, location, and activities) which correspond to the concept of content and context memory. However, the limitations of the current Family Pictures restrict the utility for evaluating the content and context memory performances.
Objective: The study was to modify the Family Pictures and provide norms for content and context memory measures. The specific objectives were to explore: (1) The dissociability of the character, location, and activities memory aspects. (2) The necessity of demographic-corrected norms for the three measures of content- and context-related memory. (3) The issue of psychometric properties. (4) The issue of norm appropriacy.
Methods: The present study collected 232 participants and used stratified sampling by current age (ranging from 20 to 88 years old), gender, education (ranging from 0 to more than 16 years), and area of residence. Eighty-six participants meanwhile received the criterion-related neuropsychological tests. Six months later, 30 participants of the norm groups received re-test year for reliability. Clinical patient group was also collected for verifying the validity.
Results: (1) These sub-scores, respectively measuring the character, location, and activities memory aspects, of the modified Family Pictures are dissociable. (2) Not only age but also gender and education have influence on each sub-score, and therefore demographic-adjusted norms are needed. (3) The three sub-scores have good reliability. The results of validity indicated that the character and the location sub-scores separately correspond to the concepts of content- and context-related memory. More studies are needed to clarify the properties of the activities sub-score. (4) The normative data have good representativeness, recency, and relevance.
Conclusion: The present study modified the Family Pictures subtest, established an appropriate normative data for evaluating the content and context memory function, and provided the referential table for percentile ranks. It is useful for early detection, differential diagnosis, prognosis evaluation, and cognitive rehabilitation. The further work on a large scale aims at normative collection and validity study in patients with brain diseases.
Subjects
the Family Pictures subtest
content memory
context memory
neuropsychological test
Taiwan norm
demographic variables
adjusted score
Type
thesis
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