UNIVERSITY-OF-SOUTHERN-CALIFORNIA REPEATABLE EPISODIC MEMORY TEST

The University of Southern California Repeatable Episodic Memory Test (USC-REMT) was developed to provide a brief assay of memory in clinica l drug trials where the same subject is tested multiple times over day s or weeks. Therefore, it had to be minimally affected by repeated tes ting. The test also provides a measure of subjective organization, a c ognitive strategy that might be sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction and HIV-related memory deficits. The USC-REMT has seven different list s, each composed of 15 semantically unrelated, high-frequency nouns. T he words are presented in a different order on three study-test trials . After each study trial the subject recalls the words in any order. T he test takes about 10 min to administer and score. The recall protoco l can be scored for (a) global mnemonic efficiency, (b) primary and se condary memory, (c) subjective organization, (d) recall consistency an d (e) recall as a function of serial position. We report initial data showing that the test is sensitive to memory decrements. Thirty-six HI V-1 seropositive men, at various stages of illness, recalled significa ntly fewer words and exhibited less subjective organization than 14 ma tched controls. The test had no significant practice effects over the first three administrations when separated by several days. The seven alternate lists are essentially equivalent. The USC-REMT appears to co mplement currently published verbal memory tasks.