Do you think your memory has gotten worse? That may not actually be true

Many people worry about their memory. You slip up on names. You forget to make that phone call you were supposed to, or what you did last Saturday.

This doesn't have to mean that your memory is deteriorating. If you think your memory has gotten worse, it could just as well reflect how you feel about the rest of your life, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have investigated how strong the correlation is between self-reported memory and how people actually perform on memory tests.

“We show that perceived memory primarily reflects mental health and stress, not actually measured memory,” says Asta Kristine Håberg

She is a professor and brain researcher at NTNU and St. Olav Hospital, and led the new study.

“For people who are worried about their memory, this study may be good news,” she says.

Got the idea after the Covid-19 pandemic

The idea came after the Covid-19 pandemic, says Simon Holmvik. He is a medical student at NTNU and first author of the new study. 

“After Covid-19, many people felt they had brain fog and that their memory had worsened,” he says.

But how well do people’s own assessments match up against actual tests?

“We thought we had data on this in the HUNT study,” Håberg says.

The Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) is a large population study that has been ongoing since 1984. It collects extensive data on participants' health and lifestyle. It is intended to provide a representative picture of the health of people in Norway.

2,690 participants

Participants in HUNT have answered questions about all sorts of things, including about how good they think their memory is. Some participants have also had their memory measured by testing for a sub-study in HUNT 4.

2,690 participants had completed both types of tests, forming the basis for the new study.

It was also possible to link data from men who were tested as part of mandatory military service, where they took a test that measured general cognitive abilities. This enabled the researchers to get a sense of how mentally sharp they were when they were young.

Fatigue and sleep problems

Participants were between 30 and 90 years old, and perceived poor memory was found to be common at all ages.

“We found out pretty quickly that we weren’t getting very far in explaining how people reported their memory based on the objective memory tests,” Holmvik says. “Then we started looking at a number of other factors. Psychological factors and general well-being were among the strongest explanations for how good or bad people perceived their memory to be.”

The more psychological problems people had, the more memory problems they reported, according to Holmvik.

The factors that were most strongly linked to perceived poor memory were:

• Symptoms of anxiety and depression
• Sleep problems
• Fatigue
• Chronic pain
• Blood pressure
• Weakened verbal memory
• Low IQ at age 18

The fact that people's view of their own memory does not necessarily match objective measures does not mean that it is unimportant, says Håberg.

“Self-perceived issues can often be more significant for health than what can be measured. You realise something is wrong, but you may not be able to describe the problem or what you need help with,” she says.

Remembering words

The HUNT participants completed three types of memory tests.

The verbal test involved remembering words. Researchers found some connection between results on this test and self-perceived memory.

However, there was only a weak link to the other two tests, which were about spatial memory and pattern separation.

This may be because people tend to associate memory mostly with remembering words, conversations, what we have read, or heard on TV," says Håberg.

Women thought their own memory was better

For the objective tests, poorer verbal memory was linked to a large waistline and diabetes.

For self-reported poor memory, both high and low blood pressure were associated health factors.

What did the military conscription cognitive tests show?

Weaker cognitive ability in young adulthood was associated with experiencing memory problems later in life.

“This was true for all ages,” says Håberg.

The researchers also found some gender differences.

“We found that men reported more memory problems than women. Earlier studies have often shown the opposite,” says Holmvik. 

She adds that women with poor verbal memory believe they have a better memory than men whose memory is similar.

“It's somewhat the opposite of what you think. You might think that women underestimate themselves, but they don't here,” she says.

"Not the same"

Holmvik says these findings are important in different situations, such as in the doctor's office. 

When your doctor asks how your memory is, it's good to know that psychological factors play a role in the answer.

“In future research, it’s important to remember that subjective and objective memory are not the same. They measure different things, and researchers should be cautious if they only measure subjective memory and claim it reflects actual memory,” he says.

"Relevant"

“This is an exciting study that shows that self-perceived memory is often more strongly linked to mental well-being than to objective tests,” Inger Molvik writes in an email to Science Norway.

Molvik is a special advisor and postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian National Centre for Ageing and Health and was not involved in the study.

She leads her own research project (GENDEM) on gender differences in subjective and objective memory in older age, based on HUNT data.

“Here we look specifically at gender differences in how subjective and objective memory are related over time in older people, and how social factors such as support and life circumstances influence this,” she writes.

“This allows us to study why some people experience memory problems even when their objective tests are within the normal range, and how this is affected by factors such as living situation and the support network they have around them,” she writes.

Molvik says the study by Håberg and colleagues provides an important basis for this project.

“Especially because it challenges us to think more broadly about what self-reported memory problems actually mean. This will also be relevant for what we will investigate further,” she writes.

Not completely disconnected

Merete Ellingjord-Dale is a researcher and epidemiologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and works with dementia.

“I think this is a well-conducted study that uses a large population sample from HUNT4, even though it only includes 5.4 per cent of the invited participants,” she writes in an email to Science Norway.

A particularly interesting contribution is that the researchers also looked at the relationship between subjective memory impairment and cognitive abilities measured in young adulthood during military service, according to Ellingjord-Dale.

“It provides a rare life-course perspective on how early cognitive abilities may relate to how one experiences one's own memory later in life,” she writes.

The study shows that subjective memory impairment is only weakly linked to actual memory performance, according to Ellingjord-Dale.

"Nevertheless, there is some connection between subjective memory decline, verbal memory, and conscription data, which may indicate that perceived memory partly reflects cognitive function, but not strongly enough to serve as a direct substitute for memory testing,” she writes.

“Overall, I believe the study makes an important and nuanced contribution by showing that subjective memory is largely its own phenomenon related to health and lived experience, while not being completely disconnected from actual cognitive function,” she writes.

Reference:

Holmvik et al. Subjective Memory Impairment in the General Adult Population: Associations With Early-Life Cognition, Concurrent Objective Memory, Dementia Risk Factors, European Journal of Neurology, 2026. DOI: 10.1111/ene.70556

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Translated by Nancy Bazilchuk

Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no

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