Psychology

Dr. Eesha Kokje- Psychologist, M.Sc.
Network Aging Research

Bergheimer Straße 20
69115 Heidelberg

Phone: +49 (0)6221 54 8120
kokje(at)nar.uni-heidelberg.de

Fellows: Prof. Christiane von Stutterheim

Language and Cognition in Early Dementia

Dementia is generally characterized by progressive cognitive and functional decline. Despite considerable research dedicated to understanding the causes of dementia, and how it impacts functioning of affected individuals, little is still known about how specific cognitive processes are affected, and how the loss of these cognitive functions can be minimised. Furthermore, despite the crucial role of language in cognition, language functions are dissociated from other cognitive functions. With the exception of lexical access, most linguistic functions are fairly preserved, especially during the early stage of dementia, in comparison to the decline observed in other cognitive functions, like memory or attention.

The aim of this project is to study how language and other cognitive processes interact (or do not) in people living with dementia. For this purpose, the study will focus on event cognition, which refers to how a continuous, ongoing event is perceived, encoded, and understood, by an individual. I will be investigating if, and how, event cognition is affected in people in the early stage of dementia. As language forms an important part of cognition, the study will also look at whether interaction of this cognitive process with language can influence it. Specifically, two aspects of event cognition will be investigated- comprehension of macroevents and event segmentation.

Publications

• Kokje, E., Gerwien, J., & von Stutterheim, C. (2021). Macro-event recognition in healthy aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and mild cognitive impairment. Journal of Neuropsychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnp.12271
• Kokje, E., Celik, S., Wahl, H.-W., & Stutterheim, C. von (2021). Can discourse processing performance serve as an early marker of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment? A systematic review of text comprehension. European Journal of Ageing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-021-00619-5
• Kokje, E., Bindemann, M., & Megreya, A. M. (2018). Cross-race correlations in the abilities to match unfamiliar faces. Acta Psychologica, 185, 13?21. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.01.006

Vita