Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 48 (2015) 529–536 DOI 10.3233/JAD-150467 IOS Press 529 Destination Memory and Cognitive Theory of Mind in Alzheimer’s Disease Mohamad El Haj a,* , Marie-Christine G´ ely-Nargeot b and St´ ephane Raffard b,c a Laboratoire SCALab UMR CNRS 9193- University of Lille Nord de France, France b Epsylon Laboratory, EA 4556, University Montpellier III, Montpellier, France c University Department of Adult Psychiatry, CHRU Montpellier, Montpellier, France Accepted 18 June 2015 Abstract. Destination memory, or the ability to remember the destination to whom a piece of information was addressed, is found to be compromised in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Our paper investigated the relationship between destination memory and theory of mind in AD since both destination memory and theory of mind are social abilities that require processing attributes of interlocutors. Mild AD participants and controls were administered tasks tapping destination memory, affective theory of mind, and 1st and 2nd order cognitive theory of mind. Relative to controls, AD participants showed compromise in destination memory and 2nd order cognitive theory of mind, but preserved performance on affective and 1st order cognitive theory of mind. Significant correlations were observed between destination memory, and 1st and 2nd order cognitive theory of mind in AD participants and controls. By demonstrating a relationship between compromises in 2nd order theory of mind and in destination memory, our work highlights links between social cognition and memory functioning in AD. Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, destination memory, episodic memory, social cognition, theory of mind INTRODUCTION On a cognitive level, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been mainly investigated with a focus on the episodic memory decline that characterizes the disease (e.g., [1–3]). However, there is a growing interest in social cognition in AD and also in the link between social cog- nition and memory compromise in the disease. Bearing this consideration in mind, our paper investigated the relationship between theory of mind, or the ability to infer mental states in others [4, 5], and compromise in destination memory in AD. Destination memory refers to the ability to remem- ber the destination to whom a piece of information was addressed (e.g., did I tell you about my work?) [6, 7]. * Correspondence to: Mohamad El Haj, Laboratoire SCALab UMR CNRS 9193- University of Lille Nord de France, Domaine du Pont de Bois, 59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France. E-mail: mohamad.elhaj@univ-lille3.fr. In our daily lives, we are constantly relaying infor- mation to friends, family, or strangers. Remembering to whom information has been previously outputted, or destination memory, allows for successful associ- ations between messages and their receiver(s), which influences communicative efficacy and daily interac- tions with others [8, 9]. A typical illustration of costs that may result from distortions in destination memory is expecting a report from a colleague when we initially asked another colleague to perform it. Destination memory is found to be compromised in normal aging [7, 10–12] and mild-to-moderate AD [13–15]. This compromise was mainly tested in a procedure in which participants had to tell facts/proverbs to pictures of celebrities, and decide in a subsequent recognition test to which celebrity they had previously emitted the facts/proverbs. This procedure demonstrates difficul- ties in remembering to whom information has been previously outputted in normal aging and AD. ISSN 1387-2877/15/$35.00 © 2015 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved