Young and old faces in young and old heads: the factor of age in face recognition.

Research on aging and face recognition has shown age-related differences that are reflected most clearly in false-alarm errors. Elderly subjects exceed young adults in false recognitions that new faces are "old." To determine if this difference between young and elderly subjects might differ for young versus elderly faces, an experiment was conducted in which half of the young and elderly subjects studied and recognized young and middle-aged faces, and the remainder studied and recognized middle-aged and elderly faces. Replicating prior research, age-related deficits in recognition accuracy (d') were reduced with older faces, and this effect generalized from measures of face recognition to measures of face-picture recognition. However, the age-related increase in false recognitions of faces was not affected by face age.     

False recency and false fame of faces in young adulthood and old age

Studies of age differences in face recognition have shown age-related increases in false-alarm errors: elderly persons exceed young adults in judging new faces to be old. To distinguish among theoretical accounts of this finding, we compared young and elderly subjects in two recognition tasks: (1) that of judging whether faces were recent or nonrecent, and (2) that of judging whether faces were famous or nonfamous. The major independent variable was prior presentation of faces-including nonrecent and nonfamous foils-1 week before the test. False recent judgments in response to nonrecent faces and false famous judgments in response to nonfamous faces were higher among the elderly. Moreover, these age-related differences in false-alarm rates were larger for faces viewed 1 week previously than for entirely new faces. The findings suggest that, compared to young adults, older individuals rely relatively more on perceived familiarity, and relatively less on recollection of context, in making recognition decisions.     

Aging and memory for expected and unexpected objects in real-world settings.

Adult age differences in the consistency effect were examined in 3 experiments. The consistency effect refers to items inconsistent with expectations being better remembered than items consistent with expectations. Younger and older adults walked into an office room and viewed objects that varied in their consistency with expectation. Immediate and delayed recognition tests on item information (i.e., distractors were defined by their semantic identity) revealed that both age groups recognized unexpected items better than expected items. However, when recognition of token information was requested (i.e., distractors were defined by their physical appearance), younger adults, in contrast to older adults, exhibited consistency effects. Also, under divided attention, young adults revealed the same pattern of data as did elderly adults under full attention. The results are discussed in terms of capacity-related differences in distinctive encoding.     

Effects of age and anxiety on episodic memory: selectivity and variability

Selective age-related differences in source memory relative to item memory, and individual differences in memory performance in relation to anxiety were explored with high- and low-anxious subjects screened from normal young and elderly adults. They were read false facts about the locations of well-known and unknown sights in a male or female voice. Intentional and incidental learning instructions were administered for source memory. Selective age-related deficits in source memory were observed under both encoding conditions. Higher level of anxiety was related to lower memory performance only in the old group; this relation was stronger in source recall. The findings suggest that the presence of such selectivity is unrelated to the tradeoff between item encoding and source encoding. Anxiety affects the variability, and mediates the selectivity of age effects on episodic memory.     

Reducing gist-based false recognition in older adults: encoding and retrieval manipulations.

Using a categorized pictures paradigm, Koutstaal and Schacter (1997) reported high levels of false recognition of lures that were categorically related to presented items. Although also shown by younger adults, false recognition was markedly higher for older adults. To probe the factors underlying this age difference, these experiments required participants to engage in more careful scrutiny of the items at retrieval or to notice specific differentiating perceptual features of the objects during encoding. False recognition was reduced with each of these manipulations, but neither manipulation, either separately or together, eliminated the age difference in false recognition. Older adults can considerably reduce false recognition if encouraged to use more stringent decision criteria. Persistent difficulty in opposing familiarity-based responding and comparatively more generic encoding may contribute to residual deficits.     

Repeated study of items with and without repeated context: aging effects on memory discriminability

Presenting items multiple times during encoding is a common way to enhance recognition accuracy. Under such conditions, older adults often show an increase in false recognition that counteracts benefits of repeated study. Using a false-memory paradigm with related study items and related lures, we tested whether repetition within the same encoding task or repetition across two different encoding tasks would be more beneficial to older adults’ memory discriminability. Results showed that, compared to items not repeated at study, items repeated in the same context and items repeated across different contexts showed improvements in memory discriminability in both young and older adults. This improvement was primarily reflected in improved recollection responses for both age groups across both repeat study conditions, as compared to no repetition. Importantly, the results demonstrated that repetition can be used to successfully mitigate age-related deficits by increasing memory discriminability and without incurring a cost of false recognition specific to any one age group.     

DRM范式中错误记忆的年龄差异及其机制

研究旨在考察老年人错误记忆现象及内在原因,并检验模糊痕迹理论对错误记忆年老化机制的解释。以经典DRM范式为研究起点,对三组被试（年轻人35名、低龄老人28名、高龄老人34名）的记忆成绩进行比较,利用联合再认范式及多项式树型建模的统计手段,分别从现象学和认知加工机制的角度检验错误记忆的年龄差异是否符合模糊痕迹理论的预期。结果发现:（1）正确记忆与错误记忆均存在显著的年龄差异,而这两种记忆在不同年龄阶段的老年人中呈现出不同的增龄效应模式：正确记忆随年龄的增长呈不断下降的趋势,而错误记忆水平呈现倒U型发展趋势,即低龄老年组的虚报率显著高于年轻组和高龄老年组;（2）虚报率的年龄差异主要集中在未学习过但与学习词列有强语义相关的刺激（类型记为R）反应上。对R型刺激的反应模式进行分析发现,低龄老年人相比年轻人成功提取字面痕迹的概率存在显著下降,而提取要点痕迹的概率保持相对稳定;高龄老年人成功提取要点痕迹的概率相比低龄老年人显著下降。本研究的结果支持了模糊痕迹理论对个体记忆一般年老化特点的预期及解释。     

Adult age differences in memory for schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent objects in a real-world setting

The present study examined age-related differences in the inconsistency effect, in which memory is enhanced for schema-inconsistent information compared to schema-consistent information. Young and older adults studied schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent objects in an academic office under either intentional or incidental encoding instructions, and were given two recognition tests either immediately or after 48 hr: A yes/no item recognition test that included modified remember/know judgments and a token recognition test that required determining whether an original object was replaced with a different object with the same name. Young and older adults showed equivalent inconsistency effects in both item and token recognition tests, although older adults reported phenomenologically less rich memories of schema-inconsistent objects relative to young adults. These findings run counter to previous reports suggesting that aging is associated with processing declines at encoding that impair memory for details of schema-inconsistent or distinctive events. The results are consistent with a retrieval-based account in which age-related difficulties in retrieving contextual details can be offset by environmental support.     

False memories in children and adults: age,distinctiveness, and subjective experience

This study investigated developmental trends associated with the Deese/Roediger-McDermott false-memory effect, the role of distinctive information in false-memory formation, and participants' subjective experience of true and false memories. Children (5- and 7-year-olds) and adults studied lists of semantically associated words. Half of the participants studied words alone, and half studied words accompanied by pictures. There were significant age differences in recall (5-year-olds evinced more false memories than did adults) but not in recognition of critical lures. Distinctive information reduced false memory for all age groups. Younger children provided with distinctive information, and older children and adults regardless of whether they viewed distinctive information, expressed higher levels of confidence in true than in false memories. Source attributions did not significantly differ between true and false memories. Implications for theories of false memory and memory development are discussed.     

The production of false recognition and the associated state of consciousness following encoding in a naturalistic context in aging

Using virtual reality, we implemented a naturalistic variant of the DRM paradigm in young and older adults to evaluate false recall and false recognition. We distinguished false recognition related to the highest semantic association (the critical lures), semantic similarity (i.e. items that belong to the same semantic category), and perceptual similarity (i.e. items that are similar, but not identical in terms of shape or color). The data revealed that younger adults recalled and recognized more correct elements than older adults did while the older adults intruded more critical items than younger adults. Both age groups produced false recognition related to the critical items, followed by perceptually and then semantically related items. False recognitions were highly recollective as they were mainly associated with a sense of remembering, even more so in older adults than in young adults. The decline of executive functions and working memory predicted age-related increases in false memories.     

Recognition and frequency judgments in young and elderly adults

Three experiments examined frequency judgments and recognition memory in young and elderly adults. Subjects were presented a long list of words at either a 5-s rate (Experiments 1 & 3) or a 1-s rate (Experiment 2), after which frequency-judgment and recognition memory tasks were administered. Either an absolute (Experiments 1 & 2) or a relative (Experiment 3) frequency-judgment task was used. The recognition test, which involved repeated tests of some items, involved either one incorrect item paired with each correct item (Experiments 1 & 2), or four incorrect items (Experiment 3). Age-related differences in frequency judgments, for the more frequently presented items, were found in all three experiments. For the recognition scores, the predicted interaction between age and successive tests was found only in Experiment 3. The results were interpreted within the framework of age-related differences in elaborative encoding and in distractibility to irrelevant stimuli.     

Adult age effects of plausibility on memory: the role of time constraints during encoding.

We investigated the role of training-induced knowledge schemas and encoding time on adult age differences in recall. High-plausible (schema coherent) words were recalled better than low-plausible (schema discrepant) words in both age groups. This difference was larger for old adults than for young adults for presentation times ranging from 3 s to 11 s per word. After equating participants in overall recall (i.e., at 50% correct) by dynamic adjustment of presentation time, old adults again showed a stronger plausibility effect than young adults when recall was above criterion. In a second experiment with self-paced encoding, old adults used more time than young adults only for low-plausible pairs, yet they still remembered fewer of them. In a third experiment, both age groups preferred to imagine high- rather than low-plausible words, but this effect was more pronounced in old adults. The results indicate that, compared with young adults, old adults find it particularly difficult to form elaborative mental images of schema-discrepant information under a wide variety of time constraints during encoding. Results are discussed in relation to explanations based on age-related mental slowing.     

Having shaved a kiwi fruit: Memory of unfamiliar subject-performed actions

Summary In an experiment with young and elderly adults, memory of unfamiliar actions performed by the subjects was compared with memory of actions low and high in familiarity, in order further to assess the role of a knowledge base as regards memory material encoded by enacting. Memory of similar actions encoded verbally was also assessed. The findings showed that the type of encoding, as well as familiarity, determined free-recall memory performance. The highest free-recall scores were found for familiar actions encoded by performance, in both an immediate and a delayed free-recall test. Recognition memory was also enhanced by enacting, whereas the influence of familiarity with an item upon recognition performance was limited to actions encoded verbally. The role of familiarity in recognition performance of actions encoded verbally was reversed compared with that in free recall, in that recognition of unfamiliar actions was most effective. Moreover, age-related memory deficits were found in this study. Elderly adults showed a consistently lower level of performance than younger subjects in both types of free-recall test and in the recognition test. This effect of age was found regardless of the type of encoding, demonstrating that age-related memory differences are not compensated by motor encoding. The age effect was also found regardless of familiarity with the items, and was most significant for unfamiliar actions. This demonstrates that elderly adults have particular difficulty in processing unfamiliar memory material.The experiment was conducted as part of the fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the diploma degree of Maria Schumacher. Portions of this paper were presented at the 32nd Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, Regensburg, April 1990.     

Paradoxical Effects of Warning in the Production of Children's False Memories

The effects of warning on false recognition and associated subjective experience of false recollection and familiarity were investigated in 7- to 13-year-old children and young adults (N = 259) using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Two warning conditions (warning with an example of a critical lure and warning without an example of a critical lure) were compared to a control condition, in which no warning was received. We found that 7- to 8-year-olds exhibited higher false recognition in the warning-with-example condition compared with the control condition; in contrast, 12- to 13-year-olds and young adults exhibited reduced false recognition in the warning-with-example condition. No effect of warning was observed in 10- to 11-year-olds. The subjective experience associated with false memories was similar across ages. In contrast, age-related increases in subjective recollection were found for true memories. The processes that enhance or suppress false memories during development are discussed.     

Adult age differences in the effects of sentence context and stimulus degradation during visual word recognition

I investigated adult age differences in the efficiency of feature-extraction processes during visual word recognition. Participants were 24 young adults (M age = 21.0 years) and 24 older adults (M age = 66.5 years). On each trial, subjects made a word/nonword discrimination (i.e., lexical decision) regarding a target letter-string that was presented as the final item of a sentence context. The target was presented either intact or degraded visually (by the presence of asterisks between adjacent letters). Age differences in lexical decisions speed were greater for degraded targets than for intact targets, suggesting an age-related slowing in the extraction of feature-level information. For degraded word targets, however, the amount of performance benefit provided by the sentence context was greater for older adults than for young adults. It thus appears that an age-related deficiency at an early stage of word recognition is accompanied by an increased contribution from semantic context.     

Future thinking instructions improve prospective memory performance in adolescents

Studies on prospective memory (PM) development in adolescents point to age-related increases through to adulthood. The goal of the present study was to examine whether instructing adolescents to engage in an episodic prospection of themselves executing future actions (i.e., future thinking) when forming an intention would improve their PM performance and reduce age-related differences. Further, we set out to explore whether future thinking instructions result in stronger memory traces and/or stronger cue–context associations by evaluating retrospective memory for the PM cues after task completion and monitoring costs during PM task processing. Adolescents and young adults were allocated to either the future thinking, repeated-encoding or standard condition. As expected, adolescents had fewer correct PM responses than young adults. Across age groups, PM performance in the standard condition was lower than in the other encoding conditions. Importantly, the results indicate a significant interaction of age by encoding condition. While adolescents benefited most from future thinking instructions, young adults performed best in the repeated-encoding condition. The results also indicate that the beneficial effects of future thinking may result from deeper intention-encoding through the simulation of future task performance.     

Remembering and Knowing in Adulthood: Effects of Enacted Encoding and Relations to Processing Speed

We examined age differences in recollective experience accompanying recognition using Tulving's (1985) remember/know procedure, in a population-based sample of adults ranging in age from 35 to 90 years (N =323). A guided encoding condition (enactment) was compared with a non-guided encoding condition. The relation between age differences in remembering and measures of processing speed was furthermore examined. The results demonstrated higher levels of remembering following enacted encoding, but age- related decrease in remember reports following both non-guided and guided encoding. The frequency of know-reports exhibited an age-related decrease, but this effect was weak. Importantly, a large amount of the explained variance in remembering was shared by age and processing speed. Together, these results are more consistent with a common cause or processing deficiency interpretation, than with a production deficiency interpretation of age differences in recollective experience.     

Aging, emotion, and health-related decision strategies: motivational manipulations can reduce age differences

According to socioemotional selectivity theory, age-related constraints on time horizons are associated with motivational changes that increasingly favor goals related to emotional well-being. Such changes have implications for emotionally taxing tasks such as making decisions, especially when decisions require consideration of unpleasant information. This study examined age differences in information acquisition and recall in the health care realm. Using computer-based decision scenarios, 60 older and 60 young adults reviewed choice criteria that contained positive, negative, and neutral information about different physicians and health care plans. As predicted, older adults reviewed and recalled a greater proportion of positive than of negative information compared with young adults. Age differences were eliminated when motivational manipulations elicited information-gathering goals or when time perspective was controlled statistically. Implications for improving decision strategies in older adults are discussed.     

Refining CVLT-II recognition discriminability indices to enhance the characterization of recognition memory changes in healthy aging

The present study examined age-related differences on the four false-positive (FP) error subtypes found on the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition yes/no recognition memory trial and the influence of these subtypes on source and novel recognition discriminability (SoRD and NRD, respectively) index calculations. Healthy older (n = 55) adults generally made more FP errors than healthy young adults (n = 57). Accordingly, older adults performed worse than young adults on all SoRD and NRD indices. However, the manner in which FP error subtypes were incorporated into SoRD and NRD index calculations impacted the magnitudes of observed differences between and within the two age groups on SoRD and NRD indices. The present findings underline the importance of examining FP errors in assessments of recognition memory abilities, and using more refined indices of recognition discriminability to further elucidate the nature of age-related recognition memory impairment.