Abstract

Over the last two decades studies of patients with Alzheimer‘s disease (AD) have
made a significant contribution in helping to elucidate the neurological and cognitivebases for controlled and automatic forms of retrieval from long-term memory. Thesestudies show that AD patients demonstrate severe deficits on tasks that involve controlledprocesses. In contrast, their performance on tasks involving automatic processes isvariable. This article reviews experimental studies that have revealed dissociationsbetween controlled and automatic memory processing in AD, and discusses evidencefrom functional neuroimaging studies which indicate that different forms of retrievalrepresent distinct aspects of brain activity. Attention is given to the assumption thatmemory retrieval reflects the operation of a single form of processing (automatic orcontrolled). The implications of adopting this assumption are discussed within the contextof contemporary theoretical perspectives, and recent attempts to understand memoryprocessing in AD and normal ageing by using the process-dissociation approach tomemory are described. Finally, the importance of understanding the status of controlledand automatic memory processing for the diagnosis and management of AD is considered.