Wa. Law et al., WORKING-MEMORY IN INDIVIDUALS WITH HIV-INFECTION, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section A, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 16(2), 1994, pp. 173-182
The central executive component (CE) of Baddeley's working memory mode
l (Baddeley, 1992) was evaluated in 26 asymptomatic human immunodefici
ency virus-infected individuals (HIV+) and 23 HIV-control subjects usi
ng a dual-task working memory paradigm. The HIV+ and HIV- groups showe
d an equivalent reduction in performance on both the primary task (vis
ual vigilance) and the secondary task (letter span) when they were per
formed concurrently relative to when either task was performed alone.
This result suggested normal CE functioning in these HIV+ subjects. In
contrast, the HIV+ subjects had significantly longer response latenci
es on reaction time measures relative to the HIV- control group. These
findings indicated that slowed processing in early stage HIV-infected
individuals is not associated with a working memory deficit.