Are subjective cognitive complaints related to memory functioning in the working population?
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Summary
This study investigates the relationship between subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) and objective declarative memory functioning in the working population. While SCC are prevalent among employees and associated with reduced well-being, prior research has yielded inconclusive results regarding their correlation with actual cognitive performance, particularly in non-elderly adults. The authors aimed to determine if SCC relate to semantic or episodic memory deficits and to assess the influence of chronic stress, depressive symptoms, and sleep problems on this relationship. The researchers recruited 233 gainfully employed participants from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH). Participants were categorized into a high-SCC group (cases, n=112) and a low-SCC group (controls, n=114) based on self-reported cognitive difficulties. The study utilized neuropsychological tests to assess semantic memory (vocabulary, letter and category fluency) and episodic memory (face recognition, delayed free recall, and immediate free recall). Crucially, immediate free recall was tested under both focused attention (FA) and divided attention (DA) conditions, where participants performed a concurrent card-sorting task to impose executive demands. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to compare groups, controlling for age, gender, education, and income. The results indicated no significant differences between high-SCC and low-SCC groups in semantic memory performance, face recognition, or delayed episodic recall. Furthermore, no group differences were observed in immediate free recall under focused attention conditions. However, the high-SCC group demonstrated significantly poorer performance in immediate free recall during divided attention conditions, specifically when the distraction task occurred during encoding. This suggests that individuals with high SCC struggle more when executive resources are taxed. Additionally, the study found that depressive symptoms, chronic stress, and sleeping problems played a significant role in the relationship between SCC and episodic memory performance under divided attention. The findings suggest that SCC in the working population are not indicative of general memory decline but are specifically related to deficits in executive cognitive functioning, particularly under conditions requiring divided attention. The study concludes that SCC are likely linked to stress-related processes and affective issues rather than pure memory impairment. This distinction is significant for clinical and occupational settings, implying that interventions for SCC should target stress management, sleep hygiene, and emotional well-being rather than focusing solely on cognitive remediation.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-19 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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