Maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs of repeated memory tests for older adults.

Repeatedly trying to remember information can help people remember more but can also lead to inaccuracies. Two experiments examined whether the costs of repeated recall efforts can be minimized for older adults by using memory tests that require specification of the source of recalled items. Participants saw and imagined pictures and then took 3 successive recall tests in which they either indicated the source of each remembered item (source recall) or simply recalled the items without specification of their source (free recall). Results showed that recall increased systematically from Test 1 to Test 3, although the rate of increase was less marked for older adults, and older adults recalled less overall. After the free recall tests, older adults made more source misattributions (claiming to have seen imagined items) than did young adults, but after the source recall tests, age differences were not significant. Thus, repeatedly recalling items while considering their source was associated with benefits in terms of increased recall and fewer costs in terms of source errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of goal-setting and feedback on memory performance and beliefs among older and younger adults.

This research examined the impact of goal-setting conditions on memory beliefs and performance among older and younger adults. After baseline recall and assessment of beliefs, participants were assigned to goal-setting, goals plus feedback, or control. Then, additional recall trials were followed by repeated memory beliefs assessments. For both younger and older adults, performance, motivation, and self-efficacy were affected positively by goal-setting. The impact of goals plus feedback was mixed and varied as a function of age and dependent measure. Success rates for reaching memory goals, which were low for the older adults, may have been a factor in these results. Adults' self-set recall goals were predicted initially by baseline performance and self-efficacy. On the final trial, goals were predicted by last trial performance, self-efficacy, and control beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of emotional content on reality-monitoring performance in young and older adults.

Reality monitoring refers to a person's ability to distinguish between perceived and imagined events. Prior research has demonstrated that young adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for negative arousing information as compared with neutral information. The present research examined whether this reality-monitoring benefit extends to positive information in young adults and whether older adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for emotional information of either valence. Two studies revealed no evidence for a reality-monitoring advantage for positive information; in both age groups, the reality-monitoring advantage existed only for negative information. Older adults were, however, more likely to remember that a positive item had been included on a study list than they were to remember that a nonemotional item had been studied. Young adults did not show this mnemonic enhancement for positive information. These results indicate that although older adults may show some mnemonic benefits for positive information (i.e., an enhanced ability to remember that a positive item was studied), they do not always show enhanced memory for source-specifying details of a positive item's presentation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consequences of expressive regulation in older adults.

Previous research has suggested that older and young adults are equally able to regulate their outward expressions of emotion and that the regulation of emotional expression in younger adults results in decreased memory for the emotional stimulus. In the current study, we examined whether older adults show this same memory effect. Older and young adults viewed positive and negative emotional pictures under instructions to view the pictures naturally, enhance their facial expressions, or suppress their facial expressions. Older and young adults showed equivalent outward regulation of expression, but suppressing their emotional expressions led to reduced memory for emotional stimuli only in the young adults. The results suggest that older and young adults are achieving control of their expressions through different mechanisms or strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of sad mood on memory in older adults: A test of the mood congruence effect.

Mood congruence effects have long been studied in younger adults. but not in older adults. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) suggests that mood congruence could operate differently in older adults. One hundred and nineteen younger and 78 older adults were randomly assigned to sad or neutral mood inductions, using combined Velten and music induction procedures. Results indicated that during sad mood induction both older and younger adults showed enhanced recall of sad words on delayed word list recall task and in autobiographical memory. However, only older adults displayed mood congruence effects on lexical ambiguity and lower recall of positive words in the word list task. Results provided partial support for developmental effects on mood congruence derived from SST. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory training in older adults: Evidence of transfer and maintenance effects.

Few studies have examined working memory (WM) training-related gains and their transfer and maintenance effects in older adults. This present research investigates the efficacy of a verbal WM training program in adults aged 65–75 years, considering specific training gains on a verbal WM (criterion) task as well as transfer effects on measures of visuospatial WM, short-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and fluid intelligence. Maintenance of training benefits was evaluated at 8-month follow-up. Trained older adults showed higher performance than did controls on the criterion task and maintained this benefit after 8 months. Substantial general transfer effects were found for the trained group, but not for the control one. Transfer maintenance gains were found at follow-up, but only for fluid intelligence and processing speed tasks. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive plasticity in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference effects from divided attention during retrieval in younger and older adults.

The authors examined how retrieval, under divided attention (DA) conditions, is affected by the type of material in a concurrent task, and whether aging produces larger interference effects on memory. Young and old adults studied a list of unrelated words under full attention, and recalled them while performing either an animacy decision task to words or an odd-digit identification task to numbers. The animacy-distracting task interfered substantially with retrieval, and the size of the effect was not amplified in older compared with younger adults. DA using the odd-digit task did not produce as large an interference effect. These findings support the component-process model of memory, and pose problems for resource models of interference from DA at retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The costs of doing two things at once for young and older adults: Talking while walking, finger tapping, and ignoring speech of noise.

Young and older adults provided language samples in response to questions while walking, finger tapping, and ignoring speech or noise. The language samples were scored on 3 dimensions: fluency, complexity, and content. The hypothesis that working memory limitations affect speech production by older adults was tested by comparing baseline samples with those produced while the participants were performing the concurrent tasks. There were baseline differences: Older adults' speech was less fluent and less complex than young adults' speech. Young adults adopted a different strategy in response to the dual-task demands than older adults: They reduced sentence length and grammatical complexity. In contrast, older adults shifted to a reduced speech rate in the dual-task conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elevated false recollection of emotional pictures in young and older adults.

Current theories predict opposing effects of emotionally arousing information on false memory. If emotion enhances true recollection, then false recollection might be lower for emotional than for neutral pictures. However, if emotion enhances conceptual relatedness, then false recollection might increase for nonstudied but emotionally related pictures. We contrasted these 2 factors in young and older adults, using the International Affective Pictures Systems set (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005). Although both age groups used recollection in our task, false recollection was greatest for emotional pictures, supporting a conceptual relatedness account. Finally, even after accuracy differences were controlled, age was related to high-confidence false recollection of emotional pictures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of normal aging and Alzheimer's disease on emotional memory.

Recall is typically better for emotional than for neutral stimuli. This enhancement is believed to rely on limbic regions. Memory is also better for neutral stimuli embedded in an emotional context. The neural substrate supporting this effect has not been thoroughly investigated but may include frontal lobe, as well as limbic circuits. Alzheimer's disease (AD) results in atrophy of limbic structures, whereas normal aging relatively spares limbic regions but affects prefrontal areas. The authors hypothesized that AD would reduce all enhancement effects, whereas aging would disproportionately affect enhancement based on emotional context. The results confirmed the authors' hypotheses: Young and older adults, but not AD patients, showed better memory for emotional versus neutral pictures and words. Older adults and AD patients showed no benefit from emotional context, whereas young adults remembered more items embedded in an emotional versus neutral context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The structure of verbal abilities in young and older adults.

Four language sample measures as well as measures of vocabulary, verbal fluency, and memory span were obtained from a sample of young adults and a sample of older adults. Factor analysis was used to analyze the structure of the vocabulary, fluency, and span measures for each age group. Then an "extension" analysis was performed by using structural modeling techniques to determine how the language sample measures were related to the other measures. The measure of grammatical complexity was associated with measures of working memory including reading span and digit span. Two measures, sentence length in words and a measure of lexical diversity, were associated with the vocabulary measures. The fourth measure, propositional density, was associated with the fluency measures as a measure of processing efficiency. The structure of verbal abilities in young and older adults is somewhat different, suggesting age differences in processing efficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive-behavioral interventions with older adults: Integrating clinical and gerontological research.

Psychotherapeutic interventions utilizing cognitive-behavioral strategies have been used widely with older adults. To appropriately adapt these techniques, characteristics unique to older adults must be taken into account. These factors include aspects of the social environment, cohort effects, cognitive changes with aging, personality, and emotional development, which have been described in an emerging body of research literature from the field of gerontology. In addition, clinical studies have examined the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral interventions in treating older clients for anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other disorders. This review describes current empirical evidence in gerontology and treatment outcome research that informs the practice of psychotherapy in this population and provides recommendations for conducting therapy with older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effective cue utilization reduces memory errors in older adults.

When compared with younger adults, older adults typically manifest poorer episodic memory. One hypothesis for the episodic memory deficit is that older adults may not encode contextual information as well as younger adults. Alternatively, older adults may use contextual information at retrieval less effectively when compared with younger adults. If older adults encode context less well than younger adults, then manipulations that affect context should have little effect on memory performance. To evaluate these 2 hypotheses, the authors used manipulations that promoted effective contextual cue utilization at retrieval. Retention interval and instructions at retrieval were manipulated within the imagination inflation paradigm. Results suggest that older adults encode contextual cues useful in improving memory performance but have difficulty accessing and using those cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source memory in older adults: An encoding or retrieval problem?

Source memory has been found to be more affected by aging than item memory, possibly because of declining frontal function among older adults. In 4 experiments, the authors explored the role of the frontal lobes (FLs) in source memory, the extent to which they may be involved in the encoding and/or retrieval of source or context, and the conditions under which the source memory deficit in older people may be reduced or eliminated. Results indicated that only a subset of older adults show deficits in source memory, namely those with below average frontal function, and these deficits can be eliminated by requiring people at study to consider the relation between an item and its context. These results provide convincing evidence of the importance of frontal function during the encoding of source and suggest that older adults with reduced FL function fail to initiate the processes required to integrate contextual information with focal content during study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual interference effects in sequence learning for young and older adults.

Practice of different tasks in a random order induces better retention than practicing them in a blocked order, a phenomenon known as the contextual interference (CI) effect. Our purpose was to investigate whether the CI effect exists in sequence learning, such that practicing different sequences in a random order will result in better learning of sequences than practicing them in blocks, and whether this effect is affected by aging. Subjects practiced a serial reaction time task where a set of three 4-element sequences were arranged in blocks or in a random order on 2 successive days. Subjects were divided into 4 groups based on a 2-GROUP (young or old) by 2-ORDER (random or blocked practice) between-subject design. Three days after practice (Day 5), subjects were tested with practiced and novel sequences to evaluate sequence-specific learning. The results replicate the CI effect in sequence learning in both young and older adults. Older adults retained sequences better when trained in a random condition than in a blocked condition, although the random condition incurs greater task switching costs in older adults during practice. Our study underscores the distinction between age-related effects on learning vs. performance, and offers practical implications for enhancing skill learning in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of sensory acuity on auditory working memory span in young and older adults.

The impact of sensory acuity, processing speed, and working memory capacity on auditory working memory span (L-span) performance at 5 presentation levels was examined in 80 young adults (18–30 years of age) and 26 older adults (60–82 years of age). Lowering the presentation level of the L-span task had a greater detrimental effect on the older adults than on the younger ones. Furthermore, the relationship between sensory acuity and L-span performance varied as a function of age and presentation level. These results suggest that declining acuity plays an important explanatory role in age-related declines in cognitive abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source memory for action in young and older adults: Self vs. close or unknown others.

The present study examines source memory for actions (e.g., placing items in a suitcase). For both young and older adult participants, source memory for actions performed by the self was better than memory for actions performed by either a known (close) or unknown other. In addition, neither young nor older adults were more likely to confuse self with close others than with unknown others. Results suggest an advantage in source memory for actions performed by the self compared to others, possibly associated with sensorimotor cues that are relatively preserved in aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object- and location-based inhibition of return in younger and older adults.

When a cued object moves to new spatial coordinates, inhibition of return (IOR) with younger adults is found at the original cued location (location-based IOR) and at the current location of the object (object-based IOR). Older adults, however, show only location-based IOR. To determine whether this pattern of results represents a general age-related deficit in object-based IOR, the authors used static displays in which the placeholders (i.e., objects) were either present (location-based IOR + object-based IOR) or absent (location-based IOR only). Both age groups showed location-based IOR, but the older adults failed to show object-based IOR, consistent with age-related differences in visual pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval.

Cognitive aging research documents reduced access to contextually specific episodic details in older adults, whereas access to semantic or other nonepisodic information is preserved or facilitated. The present study extended this finding to autobiographical memory by using a new measure: the Autobiographical Interview. Younger and older adults recalled events from 5 life periods. Protocols were scored according to a reliable system for categorizing episodic and nonepisodic information. Whereas younger adults were biased toward episodic details reflecting happenings, locations, perceptions, and thoughts, older adults favored semantic details not connected to a particular time and place. This pattern persisted after additional structured probing for contextual details. The Autobiographical Interview is a useful instrument for quantifying episodic and semantic contributions to personal remote memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative success of a self-help and a group-based memory training program for older adults.

This study evaluates self-help and group-based memory training programs to test for their differential impact on memory beliefs and performance. Self-help participants used a manual that presented strategies for name, story, and list recall and practice exercises. Matched content from that same manual was presented by the trainer in 2-hr weekly group sessions for the group-based trainees. Relative to a wait-list control group, most memory measures showed significant gains for both self-help and group-based training, with no significant training condition differences, and these gains were maintained at follow-up. Belief measures showed that locus of control was significantly higher for the self-help and group-based training than the control group; memory self-efficacy significantly declined for controls, increased for group-trained participants, and remained constant in the self-help group. Self-efficacy change in a self-help group may require more opportunities for interacting with peers and/or an instructor emphasizing one’s potential for memory change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)