Memory self-efficacy and performance differences in young and old adults: The effect of mnemonic training.

We evaluated the hypothesis that mnemonic training would result in higher memory self-efficacy and better memory performance in young and old adults. Forty-eight young adults (17- to 19-year-olds) and 45 old adults (60- to 78-year-olds) received either training in the method of loci or no training and were given either performance feedback or no feedback on a serial-word recall task. Ss were tested at pre- and posttraining and were asked to rate their self-efficacy strength (SEST) and self-efficacy level (SEL) at each test session. Young adults recalled more than old adults and had higher self-efficacy scores. Training with feedback improved recall performance in both age groups but failed to increase SEST or SEL. When SEL scores were used to derive a measure of prediction inaccuracy, no age differences were observed. We conclude that efficacy expectations and attributions for memory performance may influence mnemonic training outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic activation and episodic odor recognition in young and older adults.

Young, young–old, and old adults were examined in immediate and delayed episodic recognition of common odors. Items were presented in 3 different formats: name-only, odor-only, or odor-name. Ss made familiarity ratings for all items at study. In the delayed recognition test, Ss were asked to name the odors. Young Ss outperformed the 2 older age groups in both recognition tests, although the 2 older groups did not differ. Performance was higher in the odor-name condition than in the single-format conditions. Both familiarity and naming were related to recognition in all age groups. Most important, when naming was statistically controlled, age differences in odor recognition disappeared, suggesting that access to verbal labels largely determine age differences in recognition of common odors. Finally, the finding that recognition was enhanced in both young and older Ss in the odor-name condition suggests that odor memory may involve a similar degree of plasticity as other varieties of episodic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of environmental support on implicit and explicit memory in younger and older adults.

Addressed (1) whether there are age differences on an implicit word-stem-completion task and (2) whether age differences on both implicit and explicit memory would decrease with increased environmental support. A total of 287 Ss were presented with words in an incidental learning task with structural or semantic processing. Following 2 filler tasks, Ss received an implicit or an explicit word-stem-completion task. The number of letters in the stem varied from 2 to 4. Results yielded an Age?×?Memory Task dissociation such that there were large age differences on the explicit task and no age difference on the implicit task, regardless of whether Ss aware of the memory test were included or excluded. There was no evidence that environmental support improved older adults' performance more than that of younger adults on either memory task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Emery, Hale, and Myerson (2008).

Reports an error in "Age differences in proactive interference, working memory, and abstract reasoning" by Lisa Emery, Sandra Hale and Joel Myerson (Psychology and Aging, 2008[Sep], Vol 23[3], 634-645). The original article contained an incorrect DOI. The correct DOI is as follows: 10.1037/a0012577. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-13050-014.) It has been hypothesized that older adults are especially susceptible to proactive interference (PI) and that this may contribute to age differences in working memory performance. In young adults, individual differences in PI affect both working memory and reasoning ability, but the relations between PI, working memory, and reasoning in older adults have not been examined. In the current study, young, old, and very old adults performed a modified operation span task that induced several cycles of PI buildup and release as well as two tests of abstract reasoning ability. Age differences in working memory scores increased as PI built up, consistent with the hypothesis that older adults are more susceptible to PI, but both young and older adults showed complete release from PI. Young adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by working memory performance under high PI conditions, replicating M. Bunting (2006). In contrast, older adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by their working memory performance under low PI conditions, thereby raising questions regarding the general role of susceptibility to PI in differences in higher cognitive function among older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age, gender, and individual differences in memory failure appraisal.

Young adults (22 men and 24 women) and older adults (24 men and 24 women) rated 12 gender-neutral vignettes describing short-term, long-term, and very-long-term memory failures. Vignette target persons were young (aged 21–32 yrs) or older (aged 65–75 yrs) men or women. Ss of both age and gender groups used a double standard: Failures of older targets of both genders were rated as signifying greater mental difficulty than failures of young targets; failures of young targets were attributed to lack of effort and attention. Young Ss judged very-long-term failures more harshly than did older Ss. Ss' objective memory performance, self-rated memory failure frequency, memory failure discomfort, and depression made little difference in their target person ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding performance and learning in consistent memory search: An age-related perspective.

This study was conducted to investigate learning in memory search tasks. Young and old participants were trained for 5,640 trials of consistent mapping (CM) and varied mapping (VM) memory search. After training, participants were transferred into New CM and CM Reversal conditions. During training, both young and old adults improved reaction time performance, with more rapid improvement for the young adults. In CM training, both age groups achieved zero comparison slopes, indicating automaticity in CM memory search. VM training maintained a large age-related difference in search times. Age did not moderate the transfer effects, suggesting similar learning mechanisms were responsible for the original CM training gains in both age groups; however, transfer effects were different for CM Reversal and New CM. The pattern of transfer data argues against several possible mechanisms for automaticity in memory search. The data are most compatible with a hypothesis of memory-set unitization as the locus of automaticity in memory search. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in proactive interference, working memory, and abstract reasoning.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 23(4) of Psychology and Aging (see record 2008-19072-007). The original article contained an incorrect DOI. The correct DOI is as follows: 10.1037/a0012577.] It has been hypothesized that older adults are especially susceptible to proactive interference (PI) and that this may contribute to age differences in working memory performance. In young adults, individual differences in PI affect both working memory and reasoning ability, but the relations between PI, working memory, and reasoning in older adults have not been examined. In the current study, young, old, and very old adults performed a modified operation span task that induced several cycles of PI buildup and release as well as two tests of abstract reasoning ability. Age differences in working memory scores increased as PI built up, consistent with the hypothesis that older adults are more susceptible to PI, but both young and older adults showed complete release from PI. Young adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by working memory performance under high PI conditions, replicating M. Bunting (2006). In contrast, older adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by their working memory performance under low PI conditions, thereby raising questions regarding the general role of susceptibility to PI in differences in higher cognitive function among older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in integrated semantic memory.

Used J. D. Bransford and J. J. Franks's (1971) paradigm of linguistic abstraction to examine age differences in the nature of stored semantic information. 20 young (mean age 18.7 yrs) and 18 old adults (mean age 67.3 yrs) served as Ss. Specifically, age differences on 2 dimensions of memory were examined: (a) integration of related content from separate sentences and (b) retention of precise semantic content. Young and old Ss were not found to differ in the precision of retained semantic information. Furthermore, while both age groups evidenced integration of information as indexed by a strong linear trend of recognition rate across sentence complexity, this trend did not interact with age, supporting the idea that both age groups showed comparable integration of linguistic information into holistic ideas. Implications for current conceptualizations of age differences in memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and memory for pictures of faces.

The hypothesis that pictorial aspects of face-recognition memory are lower in old age was tested in 2 studies. Young and elderly Ss viewed 48 face pictures, and then took a test containing identical copies of input faces, pictorially changed versions of input faces, and entirely new faces. Replicating prior findings, Experiment 1 showed that false recognitions of entirely new faces were higher among elderly Ss. However, there were no age differences in distinguishing identical from pictorially changed faces. Using a modified test, Experiment 2 showed that although the elderly Ss had good knowledge that changed faces were changed, they had relatively poor knowledge of how they were changed. There appears to be age differences in analytical matching of pictorial information against information in memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of processing resources in age-related prospective and retrospective memory within old age.

This study investigated the role of processing speed and working memory in prospective and retrospective memory (i.e., free recall) performance within old age. The aim was to examine age-related differences in both memory domains within the age range of 65 to 80 years. The sample consisted of 361 older adults from Wave 1 data of the Zurich Longitudinal Study on Cognitive Aging. Using structural equation modeling, prospective memory, free recall, working memory, and processing speed were identified as latent constructs. Age effects were found to be larger for prospective memory than for free recall. Furthermore, when controlling for individual differences in working memory and processing speed, unique age effects remained for prospective, but not retrospective, memory performance. Results indicate that, within old age, prospective memory represents a distinct memory construct that is partially independent of age-related individual differences in speed of processing, working memory, and retrospective memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On-line processing of written text by younger and older adults.

Word-by-word reading times were measured for young and elderly adults who read single sentences for immediate recall. The reading strategies of young and old were similar in that both groups allocated time to process word-level and constituent-level features. Young and elderly readers differed mainly in how they allocated time for organizational processing: Whereas younger adults allocated extra processing time at sentence boundaries as well as at major and minor clause boundaries, older adults allocated extra time at major and minor clause boundaries only. Results were generally consistent with the notions that processes that are more microlevel (e.g., word access) become automatic with practice and that age deficits are minimal for such processes. Age differences in organization time allocated at clause boundaries, however, suggested age-related limitations in working memory processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of contextual organization on spatial memory of middle-aged and older women.

Examined the memory performance of 20 women aged 31–59 yrs and 20 aged 65–85. Ss reconstructed spatial arrays, replacing miniature objects in either a contextually organized panorama or a noncontextually organized bank of cubicles. Performance of the middle-aged Ss did not differ between the 2 tasks. Older Ss performed as well as middle-aged Ss in the panorama task, but in the cubicles task their scores were lower than in the panorama task and lower than those of the younger Ss in the cubicles task. Results support the conclusion that in a task that allows the use of existing contextual organization as a memory aid, age differences in memory performance disappear. Age differences may be limited to tasks that remove previously learned relationships between items (as in recall of lists of unrelated words), requiring Ss to invent an organizational structure to facilitate recall. Though such tasks predominate in research, they probably do not represent the memory problems met in everyday life, especially by older adults. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory and age differences in spatial manipulation ability.

Young and old adults were asked, in 3 experiments, to make decisions about the identity of line segment patterns after either adding or subtracting line segments from the original pattern. On some of the trials, the line segments from the initial display were presented again in the second display to minimize the necessity of remembering early information during the processing of later information. Although this manipulation presumably reduced the importance of memory in the tasks, it had little effect on the magnitude of the age differences in any of the experiments. Because the 2 groups were equivalent in accuracy of simple recognition judgments, but older adults were less accurate when the same types of decisions were required in the context of an ongoing task, the results suggested that older adults may be impaired in the ability to retain information while simultaneously processing the same or other information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in predicting memory performance: The effects of normative information and task experience.

Two experiments addressed the effects of task information and experience on younger and older adults' ability to predict their memory for words. The 1st study, which involved 36 women (aged 20–30 yrs) and 36 women (aged 65–75 yrs), examined the effects of normative task information on Ss' predictions for 30-word lists across 3 trials. The 2nd study, which involved 2 groups of men and women (128 Ss total; aged 19–30 yrs and 54–77 yrs), examined the effects of making predictions and recalling either an easy or a difficult word list prior to making predictions and recalling a moderately difficult word list. Results from both studies showed that task information and experience affected Ss' predictions and that elderly adults predicted their performance more accurately than did younger adults. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speed and intelligence in old age.

Past research suggests that age differences in measures of cognitive speed contribute to differences in intellectual functioning between young and old adults. To investigate whether speed also predicts age-related differences in intellectual performance beyond age 70 yrs, tests indicating 5 intellectual abilities (speed, reasoning, memory, knowledge, and fluency) were administered to a close-to-representative, age-stratified sample of old and very old adults. Age trends of all 5 abilities were well described by a negative linear function. The speed-mediated effect of age fully explained the relationship between age and both the common and the specific variance of the other 4 abilities. Results offer strong support for the speed hypothesis of old age cognitive decline but need to be qualified by further research on the reasons underlying age differences in measures of speed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in attentional allocation during memory search.

Young and older adults performed a memory search task in which, before probe onset, a cue indicated which of 4 memory-set items the probe was most likely to be. Results were consistent with an attentional allocation model in which performance represents a weighted combination, across trials, of focused (i.e., selective) vs distributed attention. The model significantly underestimated the reaction time (RT) required by miscued trials, probably because of the response inhibition occurring on these trials. The degree to which Ss relied on focused attention was significantly greater for older adults than for young adults. The estimated time required to shift attention between memory-set items was equivalent for the 2 age groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do ability-performance relationships differentiate age and practice effects in visual search?

Investigated relationships between abilities and performance in visual search for 70 young (aged 17–31 yrs) and 70 old adults (aged 65–80 yrs). Ss received extensive practice on a category search task. A consistent version allowed development of an automatic attention response; a varied version allowed general performance improvements. Transfer conditions assessed learning. General ability, induction, semantic knowledge, working memory, perceptual speed, semantic memory access, and psychomotor speed were assessed. LISREL models revealed that general ability and semantic memory access predicted initial performance for both age groups. Improvements on both the consistent and the varied tasks were predicted by perceptual speed. Ability–performance relationships indexed performance changes but were not predictive of learning (i.e., automatic process vs general efficiency). Qualitative differences in the ability-transfer models suggest age differences in learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What is memory aging the aging of?

Tested 64 males and females in their 20s and 60s, with high school and doctoral-level educations, on a variety of memory tasks. There were sizable age decrements in word recall and recognition independent of education. Age differences in the pattern of performance on incidental and intentional recall and recognition tests and in semantic elaboration suggested that older Ss suffer from associative processing production deficiencies and inefficiencies. No age differences in number of overt free associations, responses on the memory questionnaire, study time, reported strategy use, accuracy at memory prediction, accuracy at confidence rating, intrusions in recall, or response criterion in recognition suggested that age differences in word memory were not related to amount of semantic processing, knowledge about memory, inclination to strategically engage in activities to enhance retention, memory monitoring, or memory selection or decision. There were age increments in fact recall and recognition, also independent of education. These trends may have been related to age differences in preexperimental familiarity with materials, but also suggested limitations in the generalizability of findings from typical laboratory tasks. There were weak but positive relations between poor memory and both poor health and acceptance of "aging" roles. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive mediation of adult age differences in language performance.

Young (M?=?20 years) and old (M?=?68 years) adults completed language processing tasks, measures of working memory capacity (backward span and the n-back lag task), inhibitory efficiency (Stroop interference), and processing speed (color naming). Regression analyses revealed that each of the resource measures significantly predicted language performance and attenuated variance in language performance that would otherwise be attributed to age. When speed variance was entered into the equation first, the mediating influence of the inhibition and working memory measures remained significant. When speed and inhibition differences were controlled, the working memory measures could not reliably predict language performance. These results suggest that language performance differences may be fundamentally mediated by age differences in processing speed and inhibitory efficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dual-task assessment of age differences in automatic process development.

The present experiment assessed dual-task performance in 20 young (mean age 21) and 20 old (mean age 72) adults. Ss first received extensive single-task practice on consistent and varied search tasks. Next, they received dual-task practice in 2 conditions: (1) varied visual search plus varied memory search and (2) consistent visual search plus varied memory search. In the varied-varied condition, young and old adults showed similar dual-task decrements. These results, along with the current data in the literature, suggest that practice may play an important role in determining age-related dual-task differences (or lack thereof). In the consistent-varied condition, young adults attained single-task performance levels, because they had automatized the consistent task. Old adults were unable to match their single-task performance levels, indicating that they were unable to automatize the consistent task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)