Attributions for Memory Performance in Adulthood: Age Differences and Mediation Effects

We examined age differences in attributions to internal (controllable and uncontrollable), external (uncontrollable), and unstable factors for performance on a free recall memory task in 149 young, middle-aged, and older adults. Attributions varied by age and by level of memory performance. Middle-aged and older adults rated internal, uncontrollable factors (ability and genes) as more influential for high performance than for low performance, and they were less likely than young adults to attribute low performance to these factors. Within age groups, only the older adults rated memory ability as more influential than strategy use, even though they were as likely as the other age groups to use a categorization strategy. Attributions to both internal controllable (strategy use) and uncontrollable (ability) factors as well as to health were associated with better memory performance. These attributions partially mediated the relationship between age and memory performance. Thus, attributions may provide some insight into sources of age differences in memory performance.     

Production and Identification Repetition Priming in AmnesticMild Cognitive Impairment

ABSTRACT

The experiment reported here examined implicit memory function, as measured through repetition priming, in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to examine whether impairments exist in this aspect of memory function. Young adults, healthy older controls, Alzheimer's disease patients, and MCI participants were asked to perform two types of implicit memory tests (word stem completion and threshold identification repetition priming tasks), as well as a recognition test for studied items. As expected, young adults performed better than the other participants on the recognition test and the word stem completion task; there was equivalent priming across groups on the word identification task. While both the older control and MCI participants showed lower levels of priming on the word stem completion task relative to the young adults, the magnitude of priming was equivalent for these two groups, and reliably greater than that of the dementia participants. These results suggest that not all aspects of memory function are impaired in MCI relative to healthy aging.     

Age-related associative deficits and the isolation effect

ABSTRACT

If all but one of the items in a list are similar (e.g., all black except one red), memory for the different item is enhanced (the isolation effect). Older adults generally show similar or smaller isolation effects compared to young adults, which has been attributed to age-related deficits in associative memory whereby older adults are less able to associate an isolated stimulus to its isolating feature. Experiment 1 examined the isolation effect for isolation based on spatial position, modality and color; in Experiment 2, the criterion for isolation was the associative relation between stimuli. The results consistently showed no differences between young and older participants in the magnitude of the isolation effect. Whilst age deficits in associative memory may act to reduce the isolation effect in older adults, age deficits in self-initiated processing and inhibitory functionality may counteract this reduction by enhancing the isolation effect in older adults.     

Self-Reported Cognitive Inconsistency in Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Insight into one's own cognitive abilities, or metacognition, has been widely studied in developmental psychology. Relevance to the clinician is high, as memory complaints in older adults show an association with impending dementia, even after controlling for likely confounds. Another candidate marker of impending dementia under study is inconsistency in cognitive performance over short time intervals. Although there has been a recent proliferation of studies of cognitive inconsistency in older adults, to date, no one has examined adults' self-perceptions of cognitive inconsistency. Ninety-four community-dwelling older adults (aged 70–91) were randomly selected from a parent longitudinal study of short-term inconsistency and long-term cognitive change in aging. Participants completed a novel 40-item self-report measure of everyday cognitive inconsistency, including parallel scales indexing perceived inconsistency 5 years ago and at present, yielding measures of past, present, and 5-year change in inconsistency. The questionnaire showed acceptable psychometric characteristics. The sample reported an increase in perceived inconsistency over time. Higher reported present inconsistency and greater 5-year increase in inconsistency were associated with noncognitive (e.g., older age, poorer ADLs, poorer health, higher depression), metacognitive (e.g., poorer self-rated memory) and neuropsychological (e.g., poorer performance and greater 5-year decline in global cognitive status, vocabulary, and memory) measures. Correlations between self-reported inconsistency and neuropsychological performance were attenuated, but largely persisted when self-rated memory and age were controlled. Observed relationships between self-reported inconsistency and measures of neuropsychological (including memory) status and decline suggest that self-perceived inconsistency may be an area of relevance in evaluating older adults for memory disorders.     

The hypercorrection effect in younger and older adults

ABSTRACT

The hypercorrection effect, which refers to the finding that errors committed with high confidence are more likely to be corrected than are low confidence errors, has been replicated many times, and with both young adults and children. In the present study, we contrasted older with younger adults. Participants answered general-information questions, made confidence ratings about their answers, were given corrective feedback, and then were retested on questions that they had gotten wrong. While younger adults showed the hypercorrection effect, older adults, despite higher overall accuracy on the general-information questions and excellent basic metacognitive ability, showed a diminished hypercorrection effect. Indeed, the correspondence between their confidence in their errors and the probability of correction was not significantly greater than zero, showing, for the first time, that a particular participant population is selectively impaired on this error correction task. These results potentially offer leverage both on the mechanisms underlying the hypercorrection effect and on reasons for older adults’ memory impairments, as well as on memory functions that are spared.     

Independent effects of colour on object identification and memory

We examined the effects of colour on object identification and memory using a study–test priming procedure with a coloured-object decision task at test (i.e., deciding whether an object is correctly coloured). Objects were selected to have a single associated colour and were either correctly or incorrectly coloured. In addition, object shape and colour were either spatially integrated (i.e., colour fell on the object surface) or spatially separated (i.e., colour formed the background to the object). Transforming the colour of an object from study to test (e.g., from a yellow banana to a purple banana) reduced priming of response times, as compared to when the object was untransformed. This utilization of colour information in object memory was not contingent upon colour falling on the object surface or whether the resulting configuration was of a correctly or incorrectly coloured object. In addition, we observed independent effects of colour on response times, whereby coloured-object decisions were more efficient for correctly than for incorrectly coloured objects but only when colour fell on the object surface. These findings provide evidence for two distinct mechanisms of shape–colour binding in object processing.     

Effect of study context on item recollection

We examined how visual context information provided during encoding, and unrelated to the target word, affected later recollection for words presented alone using a remember–know paradigm. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that participants had better overall memory—specifically, recollection—for words studied with pictures of intact faces than for words studied with pictures of scrambled or inverted faces. Experiment 2 replicated these results and showed that recollection was higher for words studied with pictures of faces than when no image accompanied the study word. In Experiment 3 participants showed equivalent memory for words studied with unique faces as for those studied with a repeatedly presented face. Results suggest that recollection benefits when visual context information high in meaningful content accompanies study words and that this benefit is not related to the uniqueness of the context. We suggest that participants use elaborative processes to integrate item and meaningful contexts into ensemble information, improving subsequent item recollection.     

Generation disrupts memory for intrinsic context but not extrinsic context

Although generation typically enhances item memory, the effect is subject to a number of theoretically important limitations. One potential limitation concerns context memory but there has been debate about whether generation actually enhances or disrupts memory for contextual details. Five experiments assessed the effect of generation on context memory for perceptual attributes of the study stimulus (intrinsic context). The results indicate that despite enhancing item memory, generation disrupts memory for intrinsic context. This result generalized over different intrinsic details (print colour and font), different generation manipulations, and several methodological factors identified in earlier research as potential moderators of this negative generation effect. Despite the negative generation effect on intrinsic context, contextual details external to the target item (extrinsic context) are not disrupted. In a sixth experiment, a visually based generation task (letter transposition) enhanced context memory for the extrinsic detail of location. Coupled with earlier research, the results indicate that generation disrupts context memory for intrinsic details but either does not harm or enhances memory for extrinsic context.     

Consensus collaboration enhances group and individual recall accuracy

We often remember in groups, yet research on collaborative recall finds “collaborative inhibition”: Recalling with others has costs compared to recalling alone. In related paradigms, remembering with others introduces errors into recall. We compared costs and benefits of two collaboration procedures—turn taking and consensus. First, 135 individuals learned a word list and recalled it alone (Recall 1). Then, 45 participants in three-member groups took turns to recall, 45 participants in three-member groups reached a consensus, and 45 participants recalled alone but were analysed as three-member nominal groups (Recall 2). Finally, all participants recalled alone (Recall 3). Both turn-taking and consensus groups demonstrated the usual pattern of costs during collaboration and benefits after collaboration in terms of recall completeness. However, consensus groups, and not turn-taking groups, demonstrated clear benefits in terms of recall accuracy, both during and after collaboration. Consensus groups engaged in beneficial group source-monitoring processes. Our findings challenge assumptions about the negative consequences of social remembering.     

Embodied grounding of memory: Toward the effects of motor execution on memory consolidation

Behavioural and neuroscientific research has provided evidence for a strong functional link between the neural motor system and lexical–semantic processing of action-related language. It remains unclear, however, whether the impact of motor actions is restricted to online language comprehension or whether sensorimotor codes are also important in the formation and consolidation of persisting memory representations of the word's referents. The current study now demonstrates that recognition performance for action words is modulated by motor actions performed during the retention interval. Specifically, participants were required to learn words denoting objects that were associated with either a pressing or a twisting action (e.g., piano, screwdriver) and words that were not associated to actions. During a 6–8-minute retention phase, participants performed an intervening task that required the execution of pressing or twisting responses. A subsequent recognition task revealed a better memory for words that denoted objects for which the functional use was congruent with the action performed during the retention interval (e.g., pepper mill–twisting action, doorbell–pressing action) than for words that denoted objects for which the functional use was incongruent. In further experiments, we were able to generalize this effect of selective memory enhancement of words by performing congruent motor actions to an implicit perceptual (Experiment 2) and implicit semantic memory test (Experiment 3). Our findings suggest that a reactivation of motor codes affects the process of memory consolidation and emphasizes therefore the important role of sensorimotor codes in establishing enduring semantic representations.