Metacognition in Semantic Dementia: Comparison With Alzheimer's Disease

Metacognition in Semantic Dementia: Comparison With Alzheimer's Disease

This study aims at exploring patients' ability to monitor their own memory performance depending on their primary deficit and the type of memory involved in the criterion task. The goal is to evaluate if semantic dementia (SD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) differently affect patients' awareness of their memory abilities.

Patients who will give their informed non-opposition will be included. Participants will undergo 6 metacognitive tasks in which they will be tested on newly learnt information (i.e., episodic memory) or prior knowledge (i.e., semantic memory) and asked to evaluate their performance either prior or after the test. Correlation between their evaluation and their actual performance will be measured. Performance and correlations will be compared across groups.

Inclusion Criteria:

• native French-speakers
• normal or corrected-to-normal vision
• for patients ONLY : doctor-approved diagnosis of semantic dementia or Alzheimer's disease
• for healthy participants ONLY: score above 27 on the MMSE
• non-opposition in participation

Exclusion Criteria:

• other neurological/ psychiatric disorder, or cognitive disorder that might affect general cognition
• drug or alcohol abuse