Tense production in French-speaking participants with Alzheimer's disease: What about discourse? Contribution of a storytelling-in-sequence task

BackgroundThe production of verbal tenses is impaired in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as shown by several studies focusing on time reference and using sentence completion tasks. However, there is currently a limited understanding of how tense is produced in discourse with this disease. Discourse is interesting as it involves building a mental representation of the event to be narrated with its temporal framework and translating this framework into language using tense. A shift from the present perspective to the time of the event is required. This may be particularly difficult for people with AD, who also show an alteration in mental time travel capacity, which is linked to episodic memory, semantic memory and temporality.ObjectiveThis study has two aims: (1) to investigate the influence of the temporal framework on tense production in French-speaking people with AD, and (2) to determine whether abilities in temporality, episodic memory and semantic memory predict tense marking in discourse among this population.MethodsTense production was assessed using a storytelling-in-sequence task administered to 21 people with biologically probable AD (age: 71.95; % female: 57) and a control group.ResultsThe results showed that people with AD produced more verb forms in the present tense in the non-present conditions than in the control group, especially in the future condition. Temporality and semantic memory predict future tense production in this disease.ConclusionsThis study suggests that studying time reference in AD provides information about the ability to mentally travel through time in this population.