This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link:http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/4660/ Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014- Copyright and reuse: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. AbstractIn their recent paper, Acheson, MacDonald, and Postle (2011) made an important but controversial suggestion: they hypothesised that a) semantic information has an effect on order information in short-term memory (STM) and b) that order recall in STM is based on the level of activation of items within the relevant lexico-semantic long-term memory (LTM) network.However, verbal STM research typically has led to the conclusion that factors such as semantic category have a large effect on the number of correctly recalled items and little or no impact on order recall (Poirier & Saint-Aubin, 1995;Tse, 2009;Saint-Aubin, Ouellette, & Poirier, 2005).Moreover most formal models of short-term order memory currently suggest a separate mechanism for order coding -that is one that is separate from item representation and not associated with long-term memory lexico-semantic networks. Both of the studies reported here We are all familiar the experience of reading a paper in our field of expertise. Expressions are recognised, some arguments and ideas are anticipated, and grasping the experimental logic is facilitated by our understanding of the strategies in the area. Our previous knowledge of the constituents of the paper significantly supports our understanding of the work. In important ways, this example illustrates one of the most fundamental functions that memory performs:allowing the past to support and guide our present interactions with the world. This is the issue that motivated the current work; the studies reported here examine the interaction between semantic knowledge and the last few seconds of our most recent past -the content of verbal short-term memory (STM).Here, STM is viewed as a less general system than working memory. More specifically, STM is defined as the system that carries out the temporary maintenance of information necessary for many mental or cognitive operations and tasks (Baddeley, 1986). Generally, STM is recognised and playing an important role in everyday cognition (Majerus, 2009;Cowan, 1999). Moreover, the role of STM for order has also been highlighted in cognitive development and in particular in learning new words (Cowan, 1999;Majerus & Boukebza, 2013). One of the roles of STM that is regarded as central is the short-term maintenance of the order of events (Majerus, 2009). As a simple example, consider keying in a new security code, address, or phone number. These can of course be written down, but even in order to do so, they must be maintained in order long eno...

Citation: Mair, A., Poirier, M. & Conway, M. A. (2017). Supporting older and younger adults' memory for recent everyday events: a prospective sampling study using SenseCam. Consciousness and Cognition, 49, pp. 190-202. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2017.02.008 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.

Studies examining age effects in autobiographical memory have produced inconsistent results. This study examined whether a set of typical autobiographical memory measures produced equivalent results in a single participant sample. Five memory tests (everyday memory, autobiographical memory from the past year, autobiographical memory from age 11–17, word-cued autobiographical memory, and word-list recall) were administered in a single sample of young and older adults. There was significant variance in the tests’ sensitivity to age: word-cued autobiographical memory produced the largest deficit in older adults, similar in magnitude to word-list recall. In contrast, older adults performed comparatively well on the other measures. The pattern of findings was broadly consistent with the results of previous investigations, suggesting that (1) the results of the different AM tasks are reliable, and (2) variable age effects in the autobiographical memory literature are at least partly due to the use of different tasks, which cannot be considered interchangeable measures of autobiographical memory ability. The results are also consistent with recent work dissociating measures of specificity and detail in autobiographical memory, and suggest that specificity is particularly sensitive to ageing. In contrast, detail is less sensitive to ageing, but is influenced by retention interval and event type. The extent to which retention interval and event type interact with age remains unclear; further research using specially designed autobiographical memory tasks could resolve this issue.