Nosognosia

In addition to the nosognosia task, our participants also completed a lexical decision analogue of this task. All parameters were as for the nosognosia task, except that i) non-target trials involved the presentation of two (different) non-words and target trials involved the presentation of a non-word alongside a real word; ii) the target stimuli (real words) were not split into two categories (cf. the nosognosia task where target stimuli were either harmless or harmful illnesses); and iii) stimuli always consisted of four letters, whereas in the nosognosia task they varied between four and seven letters.

Table 3. Empirical partial correlation matrix of variables within the Memory domain. PER = Personal information recall; TSFR = time and space free recall; NOS = nosognosia; […] PER TSFR NOS […] Appendix 2: […] Orientation. The task assesses access to personal information (semantic autobiographic knowledge), orientation in time and space and awareness of deficits (nosognosia).

This study unveils the evolution of nosognosia on the AD spectrum, from hypernosognosia presented in CTRL, SMC and E-MCI, to the mild domain-specific anosognosia presented in L-MCI and finally, the more severe global anosognosia in AD patients.