The effects of presentation rate and retention interval on memory for items and associations in younger adults: A simulation of older adults’ associative memory deficit

Older adults show an associative deficit in episodic memory compared to younger adults. Previous research suggests both strategic and automatic binding deficits contribute to older adults’ poorer memory performance. Using behavioral manipulations designed to affect strategic and automatic binding of associations, three experiments attempted to simulate an associative deficit in younger adults. In these experiments participants learned face-scene pairs and then were given item and associative recognition memory tests. We manipulated the time allotted at encoding and retrieval to simulate strategic deficits, and the length of the retention interval to simulate automatic deficits. Results indicate that both manipulations separately contribute to a differential decline in associative memory, similar to the one shown by older adults, especially as reflected in the differential increase in false alarm rate in the associative memory test more than in the item memory test. Considerations of possible underlying brain mechanisms are discussed.     

Aging, metamemory, and high-confidence errors: a misrecollection account

Two experiments showed that older adults were worse than younger adults at judging the accuracy of their responses on source identification (i.e., who said what) and cued-recall tests. It is important to note that this age-related metamonitoring impairment occurred even after older and younger adults were matched on overall source accuracy and cued-recall accuracy. By contrast, older and younger adults showed comparable metamonitoring capacities when assessing the likely accuracy of old-new recognition judgments and responses to questions about general knowledge. These experiments are consistent with the misrecollection account of cognitive aging, which suggests that age-related memory impairments are due to older adults' vulnerability to making high-confidence errors when answering questions that require memory for specific details about recently learned events.     

The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. However, recent work suggests that error correction is largely related to prior knowledge, while confidence may primarily serve as a proxy for prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally remains stable or increases with age; thus, the current experiment explored how both confidence and prior knowledge contributed to error correction in younger and older adults. Participants answered general knowledge questions, rated how confident they were that their response was correct, received correct answer feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the correct response. Overall, confidence was related to error correction for younger adults, but this relationship was much smaller for older adults. However, prior knowledge was strongly related to error correction for both younger and older adults. Confidence alone played little unique role in error correction after controlling for the role of prior knowledge. These data demonstrate that prior knowledge largely predicts error correction and suggests that both older and younger adults can use their prior knowledge to effectively correct errors in memory.     

Differential effects of age on item and associative measures of memory: a meta-analysis

In this meta-analysis, the authors evaluated recent suggestions that older adults' episodic memory impairments are partially due to a reduced ability to encode and retrieve associated/bound units of information. Results of 90 studies of episodic memory for both item and associative information in 3,197 young and 3,192 older adults provided support for the age-related associative/binding deficit suggestion, indicating a larger effect of age on memory for associative information than for item information. Moderators assessed included the type of associations, encoding instructions, materials, and test format. Results indicated an age-related associative deficit in memory for source, context, temporal order, spatial location, and item pairings, in both verbal and nonverbal material. An age-related associative deficit was quite pronounced under intentional learning instructions but was not clearly evident under incidental learning instructions. Finally, test format was also found to moderate the associative deficit, with older adults showing an associative/binding deficit when item memory was evaluated via recognition tests but not when item memory was evaluated via recall tests, in which case the age-related deficits were similar for item and associative information.     

Differential effects of alcohol on associative versus item memory

Alcohol has detrimental effects on a range of cognitive processes, the most prominent being episodic memory. These deficits appear functionally similar to those observed within the normal aging population. We investigated whether an associative memory deficit, as found in older adults, would also be evident in young adults moderately intoxicated by alcohol. Participants were shown unrelated word pairs and then tested on both their item recognition (old/new item?) and associative recognition (intact/recombined pair?). Half the participants were under the influence of alcohol whereas the other half were sober. Alcohol impaired memory performance but significantly more so for associative than for item memory. Moreover, within the alcohol group, the associative memory deficit was significantly related to the amount of alcohol consumed. The findings suggest that not all aspects of episodic memory are equally impaired by alcohol, which may have practical implications for criminal investigations involving eye witnesses who have consumed alcohol.     

Associative and strategic components of episodic memory: a life-span dissociation

The authors investigated the strategic component (i.e., elaboration and organization of episodic features) and the associative component (i.e., binding processes) of episodic memory and their interactions in 4 age groups (10-12, 13-15, 20-25, and 70-75 years of age). On the basis of behavioral and neural evidence, the authors hypothesized that the two components are functionally related but follow different life-span gradients. In a fully crossed design, age differences in recognition memory for single words versus word pairs (associative demand manipulation) were examined under instructions that emphasized item, pair, or elaborative-pair encoding (strategy manipulation). As predicted, the results showed that the strategic and associative components follow different life-span trajectories. Relative to younger adults, children's difficulties in episodic memory primarily reflected lower levels of strategic functioning. In contrast, older adults showed impairments in both strategic and associative components. The authors conclude that the comparison of strategic and associative components of episodic memory across the life span helps to delineate the two components' unique and interactive contributions to episodic memory performance.     

How many memory systems? Evidence from aging

The present research tested Tulving's (1985) ternary memory theory. Young (ages 19-32) and older (ages 63-80) adults were given procedural, semantic, and episodic memory tasks. Repetition, lag, and codability were manipulated in a picture-naming task, followed by incidental memory tests. Relative to young adults, older adults exhibited lower levels of recall and recognition, but these episodic measures increased similarly as a function of lag and repetition in both age groups. No age-related deficits emerged in either semantic memory (vocabulary, latency slopes, naming errors, and tip-of-the-tongue responses) or procedural memory (repetition priming magnitude and rate of decline). In addition to the age by memory task dissociations, the manipulation of codability produced slower naming latencies and more naming errors (semantic memory), yet promoted better recall and recognition (episodic memory). Finally, a factor analysis of 11 memory measures revealed three distinct factors, providing additional support for a tripartite memory model.     

Adult age differences in episodic memory: further support for an associative-deficit hypothesis

This study further tested an associative-deficit hypothesis (ADH; M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), which attributes a substantial part of older adults' deficient episodic memory performance to their difficulty in merging unrelated attributes-units of an episode into a cohesive unit. First, the results of 2 experiments replicate those observed by M. Naveh-Benjamin (2000) showing that older adults are particularly deficient in memory tests requiring associations. Second, the results extend the type of stimuli (pictures) under which older adults show this associative deficit. Third, the results support an ADH in that older adults show less of an associative deficit when the components of the episodes used are already connected in memory, thereby facilitating their encoding and retrieval. Finally, a group of younger adults who encoded the information under divided-attention conditions did not show this associative deficit.     

Word frequency influences on the list length effect and associative memory in young and older adults

Many studies show that age deficits in memory are smaller for information supported by pre-experimental experience. Many studies also find dissociations in memory tasks between words that occur with high and low frequencies in language, but the literature is mixed regarding the extent of word frequency effects in normal ageing. We examined whether age deficits in episodic memory could be influenced by manipulations of word frequency. In Experiment 1, young and older adults studied short and long lists of high- and low-frequency words for free recall. The list length effect (the drop in proportion recalled for longer lists) was larger in young compared to older adults and for high- compared to low-frequency words. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed item and associative recognition memory tests with high- and low-frequency words. Age deficits were greater for associative memory than for item memory, demonstrating an age-related associative deficit. High-frequency words led to better associative memory performance whilst low-frequency words resulted in better item memory performance. In neither experiment was there any evidence for age deficits to be smaller for high- relative to low-frequency words, suggesting that word frequency effects on memory operate independently from effects due to cognitive ageing.     

Diminished episodic memory awareness in older adults: evidence from feeling-of-knowing and recollection

The ability to reflect on and monitor memory processes is one of the most investigated metamemory functions, and one of the important ways consciousnesses interacts with memory. The feeling-of-knowing (FOK) is one task used to evaluate individual's capacity to monitor their memory. We examined this reflective function of metacognition in older adults. We explored the contribution of metacognition to episodic memory impairment, in relation to the idea that older adults show a reduction in memory awareness characteristic of episodic memory. A first experiment showed that age affects the accuracy of FOK when predictions are made on an episodic memory task but not on a semantic memory task, suggesting a particular role for episodic memory awareness in metacognitive evaluations. A second experiment showed that the age-difference in episodic FOK accuracy was removed if one took into account subjective reports of memory awareness, or recollection. We argue that the FOK deficit specific to episodic memory is based on a lack of memory awareness manifest as a recollection deficit.     

The associative memory deficit of older adults: the role of strategy utilization

Past research has established an associative deficit hypothesis (e.g., M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) that attributes part of older adults' poor episodic memory performance to their difficulty in creating and retrieving cohesive episodes. Here, the authors evaluate the degree to which this deficit can be reduced by older adults' use of associative strategies. Young and older adults learned word pairs under either intentional-learning instructions or instructions eliciting associative strategies either at encoding or both at encoding and at retrieval, and they then took tests on their memory for both the components and the associations. Results replicated the associative deficit of older adults under intentional-learning instructions. In addition, they showed that instructions to use appropriate associative strategies during either encoding or, even more so, during encoding and retrieval resulted in a significant decrease in the associative deficit. The theoretical and applied implications of these results are discussed.     

Beyond hypercorrection: remembering corrective feedback for low-confidence errors*

Correcting errors based on corrective feedback is essential to successful learning. Previous studies have found that corrections to high-confidence errors are better remembered than low-confidence errors (the hypercorrection effect). The aim of this study was to investigate whether corrections to low-confidence errors can also be successfully retained in some cases. Participants completed an initial multiple-choice test consisting of control, trick and easy general-knowledge questions, rated their confidence after answering each question, and then received immediate corrective feedback. After a short delay, they were given a cued-recall test consisting of the same questions. In two experiments, we found high-confidence errors to control questions were better corrected on the second test compared to low-confidence errors – the typical hypercorrection effect. However, low-confidence errors to trick questions were just as likely to be corrected as high-confidence errors. Most surprisingly, we found that memory for the feedback and original responses, not confidence or surprise, were significant predictors of error correction. We conclude that for some types of material, there is an effortful process of elaboration and problem solving prior to making low-confidence errors that facilitates memory of corrective feedback.     

Inadvertent plagiarism in young and older adults: The role of working memory capacity in reducing memory errors

Two experiments examined inadvertent plagiarism in young and older adults. Young and older adults took turns generating category exemplars in small groups, and after a short retention interval recall was tested and subjects were asked to generate new exemplars (i.e., exemplars not initially generated). When asked to generate new exemplars, older adults were more likely to repeat exemplars that had been generated earlier by others (i.e., generate-new plagiarism). When asked to recall the exemplars they had generated earlier, older adults were more likely to claim that they had generated exemplars that had been generated by others (i.e., recall-own plagiarism), and were also more likely to falsely recall exemplars that had not been generated at all. There were no age differences in confidence for items that were plagiarized on the generate-new task. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that age differences in generate-new plagiarism and false recall were entirely mediated by measures of episodic recall and working memory capacity. We conclude that inadvertent plagiarism errors result from the failure of systematic decision processes, and that controlled attention is important for avoiding memory errors.     

The effects of sleep on episodic memory in older and younger adults

Evidence on sleep-dependent benefits for episodic memory remains elusive. Furthermore we know little about age-related changes on the effects of sleep on episodic memory. The study we report is the first to compare the effects of sleep on episodic memories in younger and older adults. Memories of stories and personal events were assessed following a retention interval that included sleep and following an equal duration of wakefulness. Both older and younger adults have superior memory following sleep compared to following wakefulness for both types of material. Amount of forgetting of personal events was less during wakefulness in older adults than in younger adults, possibly due to spontaneous rehearsal. Amount of time spent sleeping correlated highly with sleep benefit in older adults, suggesting that quantity of total sleep, and/or time spent in some stages of sleep, are important contributors to age-related differences in memory consolidation or protection from interference during sleep.     

Integrative and semantic relations equally alleviate age-related associative memory deficits

Two experiments compared effects of integrative and semantic relations between pairs of words on lexical and memory processes in old age. Integrative relations occur when two dissimilar and unassociated words are linked together to form a coherent phrase (e.g., horse-doctor). In Experiment 1, older adults completed a lexical-decision task where prime and target words were related either integratively or semantically. The two types of relation both facilitated responses compared to a baseline condition, demonstrating that priming can occur in older adults with minimal preexisting associations between primes and targets. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed a cued recall task with integrative, semantic, and unrelated word pairs. Both integrative and semantic pairs showed significantly smaller age differences in associative memory compared to unrelated pairs. Integrative relations facilitated older adults' memory to a similar extent as semantic relations despite having few preexisting associations in memory. Integratability of stimuli is therefore a new factor that reduces associative deficits in older adults, most likely by supporting encoding and retrieval mechanisms.     

Older adults’ associative deficit in episodic memory: Assessing the role of decline in attentional resources

In this study, we evaluated an associative deficit hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that the deficit seen in the episodic memory performance of older adults is due, in considerable part, to older adults’ difficulty in binding together unrelated components of an episode into a cohesive entity (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). The study extended the conditions under which older adults show a differential deficit in tests requiring associations among the episode components to situations in which the item and the associative recognition tests are equated on the response mode used and on the amount of information displayed. In addition, we tested the potential role of a decrease in attentional resources in the associative deficit of older adults by comparing their performance to that of younger adults under conditions of reduced attentional resources. The results of the study, which indicate that younger adults under divided attention do not show an associative deficit, are interpreted as indicating that the associative deficit of older adults is due to factors other than depleted attentional resources.     

Misrecollection prevents older adults from benefitting from semantic relatedness of the memoranda in associative memory

Memory for episodic associations declines in aging, ostensibly due to decreased recollection abilities. Accordingly, associative unitization - the encoding of associated items as one integrated entity - may potentially attenuate age-related associative deficits by enabling familiarity-based retrieval, which is relatively preserved in aging. To test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up unitization by manipulating semantic relatedness between memoranda. Twenty-four young and 24 older adults studied pairs of object pictures that were either semantically related or unrelated. Participants subsequently discriminated between intact, recombined and new pairs. We found that semantic relatedness increased the contributions of both familiarity and recollection in young adults, but did not improve older adults' performance. Instead, they showed associative deficits, driven by increased recollection-based false recognition. This may reflect a “misrecollection” phenomenon, in which older adults make more false alarms to recombined pairs with particularly high confidence, due to poorer retrieval monitoring regarding semantically-related associative probes.     

情景记忆成功年老化的神经机制

随着年龄的增长, 大部分老年人的情景记忆会出现衰退, 但也会有一部分老年人的情景记忆表现出成功的年老化, 即记忆成绩较好或随增龄的衰退程度较小。脑保持理论、神经去分化理论、认知储备理论以及神经补偿理论分别从不同角度解释了情景记忆成功年老化的神经机制。基于选择性优化与补偿模型对现有理论进行整合, 发现情景记忆成功年老化可能与个体的认知储备水平直接相关：高认知储备的老年人能够对情景记忆相关的脑区和脑网络进行优化且具备更强的神经补偿能力, 因而其脑功能(比如, 神经表征和神经加工通路的特异性)可能会保持地更好。未来研究需要更多地采用纵向设计来考察各理论之间的关系及其影响因素, 从而更好地解释记忆成功年老化的神经机制并为提升老年人的脑与认知健康提供支持。     

I misremember it well: Why older adults are unreliable eyewitnesses

We used the eyewitness suggestibility paradigm to investigate the hypothesis that cognitive aging is associated with an increase in misrecollections—confidently held but false memories of past events. When younger and older adults were matched on their overall memory for experienced events, both groups showed comparable rates of suggestibility errors in which they claimed to have seen events in a video that had only been suggested in a subsequent questionnaire. However, older adults were—alarmingly—most likely to commit suggestibility errors when they were most confident about the correctness of their response. By contrast, their younger, accuracy-matched counterparts were most likely to commit these errors when they were uncertain about the accuracy of their response. The elderly adults’ propensity to make high-confidence errors fits our misrecollection account.     

A “snapshot” of declarative memory: Differing developmental trajectories in episodic and autobiographical memory

Episodic and autobiographical memory are clearly related, yet in both the adult and developmental literatures it is difficult to compare them because of differences in how the constructs are assessed, including differences in content, levels of control, and time since experience. To address these issues, we directly compared children's and adults’ autobiographical and episodic memory using the same controlled paradigm. Participants engaged in a photo-taking activity in a museum (autobiographical encoding) and viewed others’ photographs of the same museum exhibits (episodic encoding). At test, participants classified photos as ones they took, viewed, or novel. In the autobiographical condition older children and adults performed similarly; younger children's performance was lower than adults’. In contrast, in the episodic condition both groups of children performed more poorly than adults. The findings suggest the developmental primacy of autobiographical relative to episodic memory, and that traditional episodic tasks may underestimate older children's declarative memory abilities.