one of the questions in seeing improvement through reminiscence therapy is if the gains are because of the actual type of therapy being used (reminiscing about certain subjects) or if just the increase social interactions with peers causes the progress in cognition and overall mood. a study in 2008 examined this, using an experimental group treated with reminiscence therapy and a control group where they also had group conversations about every-day subjects. mmse was used to determine the level of dementia prior to the study, and like the 2007 study, examined the cognitive and affective effect of both the reminiscence and conversation therapies on the two groups. for cognition the groups were given a four-item verbal fluency test. for evaluating the participants’ mood, quality of daily life, and interest in the treatment, the study used the todai-shiki observational rating scale (tors), and for self-report on their overall happiness, the participants took the saint marianna hospital's elderly dementia patients’ daycare evaluation table. the results in cognition agreed with the 2007 study, with the reminiscence group recalling more words pre to post test. the control conversation group, however, saw a decrease in words recalled from pre to post test, supporting the argument that it is the actual reminiscing type of therapy that causes the positive cognitive effect, not just any conversation with peers. finally, the study also showed improvements in both tors and the daycare evaluation table scores for the reminiscence group over the control, meaning the participants were happier, had improved quality of daily life, and were more attentive to treatment, compared to pre-treatment and versus control group results.