Conceptual processing of distractors by older but not younger adults (original) (raw)
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Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition, 2015
The use of previously distracting information on memory tests with indirect instructions is usually age-equivalent, while young adults typically show greater explicit memory for such information. This could reflect qualitatively distinct initial processing (encoding) of distracting information by younger and older adults, but could also be caused by greater suppression of such information by younger adults on tasks with indirect instructions. In Experiment 1, young and older adults read stories containing distracting words, which they ignored, before studying a list of words containing previously distracting items for a free recall task. Half the participants were informed of the presence of previously distracting items in the study list prior to recall (direct instruction), and half were not (indirect instruction). Recall of previously distracting words was age-equivalent in the indirect condition, but young adults recalled more distracting words in the direct condition. In Experim...
A Double Dissociation of Implicit and Explicit Memory in Younger and Older Adults
Psychological Science, 2011
This study examined whether age-related differences in cognition influence later memory for irrelevant, or distracting, information. In Experiments 1 and 2, older adults had greater implicit memory for irrelevant information than younger adults did. When explicit memory was assessed, however, the pattern of results reversed: Younger adults performed better than older adults on an explicit memory test for the previously irrelevant information, and older adults performed less well than they had on the implicit test. Experiment 3 investigated whether this differential pattern was attributable to an age-related decline in encoding resources, by reducing the encoding resources of younger adults with a secondary task; their performance perfectly simulated the pattern shown by the older adults in the first two experiments. Both older and younger adults may remember irrelevant information, but they remember it in different ways because of age-related changes in how information is processed ...
Implicit processing in the cued recall of young and old adults
Psychology and Aging, 1992
Two cued recall experiments were reported in which younger and older subjects studied target words varying in number of preexperimental associates. In Experiment 1, targets were studied in either the absence or presence of meaning-related context cues, with recall always prompted by the cues. In the absence of context, words with smaller sets of associates were easier to recall than those with larger sets, but this effect was reduced for older subjects. The presence of a study context cue facilitated recall and eliminated the effect of associative set size for both ages. In Experiment 2, targets were studied and tested in the presence of unrelated words. In this situation, words with smaller sets of associates were less likely to be recalled than words with larger sets; again the effect was reduced for older subjects. The results are interpreted as an age decrement in processing implicitly activated information.
Age effects in cued recall: Sources from implicit and explicit memory
Psychology and Aging, 1995
In 2 experiments, young and old adults were compared on cued recall using direct and indirect test instructions. Participants studied words under an incidental orienting task of rating each word for concreteness. Test cues were meaningfully related to the targets, and participants used them either to recall the studied word (direct test) or to generate a related word (indirect test). Target words and test cues varied in the number of associates linked to them prior to the laboratory experience, and effects of the size of the sets of associates were used as indicators of implicit memory search. Age differences were observed in the effects of target and cue set size as well as in the effects of type of test instruction. Older adults perform less well than younger adults on laboratory tests of memory, such as cued recall or recognition, that explicitly require the deliberate recall of recently experienced stimuli. The age difference is less apparent on memory tasks that test for implicit evidence of the recent experience without requiring deliberate recall, such as perceptual identification and lexical decision. These two categories of tasks are referred to, respectively, as tests of explicit and implicit memory (see Light, 1991, for review) or as direct and indirect measures of memory (Richardson-Klavehn & Bjork, 1988). Indirect tests of memory have been of interest to psychologists studying cognitive aging because the tests seem to suggest the existence of memory structures or memory processes that are relatively well preserved throughout the adult years. Several mechanisms have been proffered to explain implicit memory performance, including the possibility that implicit tasks involve the activation of preexisting knowledge (Graf & Mandler, 1984), which may be unaffected by age. This explanation is compatible with findings from lexical decision and other tasks that suggest relatively intact semantic networks for older adults (
Age effects on explicit and implicit memory
Frontiers in Psychology, 2013
It is well-documented that explicit memory (e.g., recognition) declines with age. In contrast, many argue that implicit memory (e.g., priming) is preserved in healthy aging. For example, priming on tasks such as perceptual identification is often not statistically different in groups of young and older adults. Such observations are commonly taken as evidence for distinct explicit and implicit learning/memory systems. In this article we discuss several lines of evidence that challenge this view. We describe how patterns of differential age-related decline may arise from differences in the ways in which the two forms of memory are commonly measured, and review recent research suggesting that under improved measurement methods, implicit memory is not age-invariant. Formal computational models are of considerable utility in revealing the nature of underlying systems. We report the results of applying single and multiple-systems models to data on age effects in implicit and explicit memory. Model comparison clearly favors the single-system view. Implications for the memory systems debate are discussed.
Inhibitory control over no-longer-relevant information: Adult age differences
Memory & Cognition, 1997
Hartman and Hasher (1991) used a garden-path task in which younger and older adults generated the final word for each of a series of high-cloze sentences. Under instructions to remember the final word, the experiment included critical sentences for which the generated word was replaced by a new, to-be-remembered target. Using an implicit priming task, the first experiment replicated a basic finding: Youngeradults showed priming only for the target words, whereas older adults showed priming for both the generated and target words. Two experiments explored boundary conditions. One showed that an additional sentence that interpreted the new target word enabled older adults to narrow access to only the target word. The provision of additional time following the introduction of the new target word did not. Specific information, not more time, is required for inefficient inhibitory mechanisms to clear the recent past from memory.
Psychological Science, 2020
Reduced attentional control with age is associated with the processing and maintenance of task-irrelevant information in memory. Yet the nature of these memory representations remains unclear. We present evidence that, relative to younger adults ( n = 48), older adults ( n = 48) both (a) store simultaneously presented target and irrelevant information as rich, bound memory representations and (b) spontaneously reactivate irrelevant information when presented with previously associated targets. In a three-stage implicit reactivation paradigm, re-presenting a target picture that was previously paired with a distractor word spontaneously reactivated the previously associated word, making it become more accessible than an unreactivated distractor word in a subsequent implicit memory task. The accessibility of reactivated words, indexed by priming, was also greater than the degree of distractor priming shown by older adults in a control condition ( n = 48). Thus, reduced attentional cont...
Age Differences in Implicit Interference
2006
We assessed age differences in interference effects in priming by using fragment completion. In Experiment 1, noninterfering filler words preceded critical targets at study, and priming was age invariant. In Experiment 2, the same target items had interfering competitors at the beginning of the list, such that both the target and the competitor were legitimate solutions to a fragment. Having two responses to a cue was disruptive for older adults, but not for younger adults. Younger and older adults differ in their susceptibility to interference in implicit tasks, and interference may play a role in influencing the magnitude of age differences in priming.
Psychology and Aging, 2013
Recognition memory is typically weaker in healthy older relative to young adults, while performance on implicit tests (e.g., repetition priming) is often comparable between groups. Such observations are commonly taken as evidence for independent explicit and implicit memory systems. On a picture version of the continuous identification with recognition (CID-R) task, we found a reliable age-related reduction in recognition memory, while the age effect on priming did not reach statistical significance (Experiment 1). This pattern was consistent with the predictions of a formal single-system model. Experiment 2 replicated these observations using separate priming (CID) and recognition phases, while a combined data analysis revealed a significant effect of age on priming. In Experiment 3 we provide evidence that priming in this task is unaffected by explicit processing, and we conclude that the age difference in priming is unlikely to have been driven by differences in explicit processing between groups of young and older adults (‘explicit contamination’). The results support the view that explicit and implicit expressions of memory are driven by a single underlying memory system.
Age differences in the effects of facilitating and distracting context on recall
Aging and Cognition, 1994
The effect of different types of context on cued recall of nouns embedded in sentences was examined. Younger and older adults studied target nouns embedded in sentences of three types: sentences containing supporting context, sentences with neutral context, and sentences containing context that was distracting to memory of the nouns. In Experiments 1 and 2, supportive sentences facilitated the performance of older adults at least as much as younger adults, and sentences that were distracting disrupted the performance of older but not of younger adults. In Experiment 3, however, when the disruptive nature of the distracting sentences was increased by ensuring that subjects processed the distracting information, there was no age by sentence type interaction. The results suggest that younger adults are better able to ignore distracting information if not required to attend to it, but are almost as disrupted as older adults when forced to attend to distracting information.