Mind the gap: Generations of questions in the early science of collaborative recall

Does collaboration with an intimate partner support memory performance? An exploratory case series of people with epilepsy or acquired brain injury

BACKGROUND

Intimate couples can become cognitively interdependent over time. If one member of the couple has a neurological condition with associated cognitive impairments, their partner can support or 'scaffold' their cognitive functioning through collaboration.

OBJECTIVE

We explored the phenomenon of 'collaborative memory' in a case series of 9 couples in which one member had a neurological condition, specifically an acquired brain injury (ABI; n = 7) or epilepsy (n = 2).

METHODS

To investigate collaborative memory, we compared the performance of the patient when remembering alone versus their performance in collaboration with their partner on three memory tasks, assessing anterograde, semantic, and autobiographical memory.

RESULTS

We found that across all tasks and participants, collaboration typically increased overall memory performance (total score), but the patient's contribution to the task was typically lower when they collaborated compared with when they performed the task alone. We identified two distinct styles of collaboration which we termed 'survival scaffolding' (where the healthy partner 'takes over' memory recall) and 'stability scaffolding' (where the healthy partner cues and structures the patient's recall).

CONCLUSION

This exploratory case series contributes to the sparse literature on memory collaboration in people with neurological conditions. Our findings suggest that there are different styles of collaboration that can both help and hinder memory performance.

The Impact of Self-Reported Hearing Difficulties on Memory Collaboration in Older Adults

Cognitive scientists and philosophers recently have highlighted the value of thinking about people at risk of or living with dementia as intertwined parts of broader cognitive systems that involve their spouse, family, friends, or carers. By this view, we rely on people and things around us to "scaffold" mental processes such as memory. In the current study, we identified 39 long-married, older adult couples who are part of the Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) Study of Ageing; all were cognitively healthy but half were subjective memory complainers. During two visits to their homes 1 week apart, we assessed husbands' and wives' cognitive performance across a range of everyday memory tasks working alone (Week 1) versus together (Week 2), including a Friends Task where they provided first and last names of their friends and acquaintances. As reported elsewhere, elderly couples recalled many more friends' names working together compared to alone. Couples who remembered successfully together used well-developed, rich, sensitive, and dynamic communication strategies to boost each other's recall. However, if one or both spouses self-reported mild-to-moderate or severe hearing difficulties (56% of husbands, 31% of wives), couples received less benefit from collaboration. Our findings imply that hearing loss may disrupt collaborative support structures that couples (and other intimate communicative partners) hone over decades together. We discuss the possibility that, cut off from the social world that scaffolds them, hearing loss may place older adults at greater risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

Collaborative Facilitation in Older Couples: Successful Joint Remembering Across Memory Tasks

Although we know a great deal about the effects of age on memory, we know less about how couples remember together and how day-to-day joint remembering might support memory performance. The possibility of memory support when couples remember together is in striking contrast with the standard finding from the collaborative recall literature that when younger pairs of strangers remember together they impair each other’s recall. In the current study, we examined the individual and joint remembering of 78 individuals who made up 39 older, long-married couples. We studied their performance on three memory tasks, varying in personal relevance: recalling a word list, listing all the countries in Europe, and remembering the names of their mutual friends. Couples gained clear collaborative benefits when they remembered together compared to when alone, especially European countries and mutual friends. Importantly, collaborative success was extremely stable over time, with good collaborators still successful 2 years later, suggesting that successful collaboration may be a stable couple-level difference. However, not all couples benefitted equally. Collaborative success related in part to particular conversational strategies that some couples, often those with discrepant individual abilities, used when collaborating. These findings highlight the value of analyzing individuals within their broader “memory systems” and the power of extending collaborative recall methods to more established intimate groups recalling a broader range of memory materials over longer time scales.

"Going episodic": collaborative inhibition and facilitation when long-married couples remember together

Two complementary approaches to the study of collaborative remembering have produced contrasting results. In the experimental "collaborative recall" approach within cognitive psychology, collaborative remembering typically results in "collaborative inhibition": laboratory groups recall fewer items than their estimated potential. In the cognitive ageing approach, collaborative remembering with a partner or spouse may provide cueing and support to benefit older adults' performance on everyday memory tasks. To combine the value of experimental and cognitive ageing approaches, we tested the effects of collaborative remembering in older, long-married couples who recalled a non-personal word list and a personal semantic list of shared trips. We scored amount recalled as well as the kinds of details remembered. We found evidence for collaborative inhibition across both tasks when scored strictly as number of list items recalled. However, we found collaborative facilitation of specific episodic details on the personal semantic list, details which were not strictly required for the completion of the task. In fact, there was a trade-off between recall of specific episodic details and number of trips recalled during collaboration. We discuss these results in terms of the functions of shared remembering and what constitutes memory success, particularly for intimate groups and for older adults.