Improving memory in older adults by instructing them in professional actors' learning strategies
✍ Scribed by Helga Noice; Tony Noice; Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello; Walter Perrig
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 129 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0888-4080
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This study examined a new type of cognitive intervention. For four weeks, participants (ages 65 to 82) were instructed in professional acting techniques, followed by rehearsal and performance of theatrical scenes. Although the training was not targeted in any way to the tasks used in pre-and post-testing, participants produced signi®cantly higher recall and recognition scores after the intervention. It is suggested that the cognitive eort involved in analyzing and adopting theatrical characters' motivations (and then experiencing those characters' mental/emotional states during performance) is responsible for the observed improvement. A secondary strand of this study showed that participants who were given annotated scripts in which the implied goals of the characters were made explicit demonstrated signi®cantly faster access to the stored material, as measured by a computer latency task.