The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults |
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Authors: | Moshe Naveh-Benjamin Geoffrey B Maddox Peter Jones Susan Old Angela Kilb |
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Institution: | (1) McAlester Hall, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA;(2) Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA |
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Abstract: | In this study we assessed the potential moderating roles of stimulus type (emotionally arousing) and participants’ characteristics
(gender) in older adults’ associative memory deficit. In two experiments, young and older participants studied lists that
included neutral and emotionally arousing word pairs (positive and negative) and completed recognition tests for the words
and their associations. In Experiment 1, the majority of the word pairs were composed of two nouns, whereas in Experiment 2 they were composed of adjective–noun pairs. The results extend evidence for older adults’ associative deficit and suggest
that older and younger adults’ item memory is improved for emotionally arousing words. However, associative memory for the
word pairs did not benefit (and even showed a slight decline) from emotionally arousing words, which was the case for both
younger and older adults. In addition, in these experiments, gender appeared to moderate the associative deficit of older
adults, with older males but not females demonstrating this deficit. |
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