Intact memory for complex events requires not only memory for particular features (e.g., item, location, color, size), but also intact cognitive processes for binding the features together. Binding provides the memorial experience that certain features belong together. The experiments presented here were designed to explicate these as potentially separable sources of age-associated changes in complex memory-namely, to investigate the possibility that age-related changes in memory for complex events arise from deficits in (1) memory for the kinds of information that comprise complex memories, (2) the processes necessary for binding this information into complex memories, or (3) both of these components. Young and older adults were presented with colored items located within an array. Relative to young adults, older adults had a specific and disproportionate deficit in recognition memory for location, but not for item or for color. Also, older adults consistently demonstrated poorer recognition memory for bound information, especially when all features were acquired intentionally. These feature and binding deficits separately contribute to what have been described as older adults' context and source memory impairments.Memories for complex events include multiple kinds of information, such as information that was of central interest to the participant or observer (e.g., semantic features), information about the time or the place at which the central information was acquired, the modality ofpresentation, a speaker's voice, associated emotions, item parameters such as color and size, and so forth. Research findings suggest that older adults have impaired memory for such kinds of information (see Kausler, 1994, for a review). Simply having intact memory for these various features would not necessarily yield intact complex memories, however. Consider that when recollecting a complex event, we do not remember a jumble of different kinds of information or features. We do not remember blue, brown, pen, table, but rather a blue pen on a brown table. Thus, complex memories not only require memory for particular features, but also certain cognitive processes for binding the features together. Binding provides the memorial experience that certain features belong together. There has been no systematic research to evaluate the possibility that age-related changes in memory for complex events may arise from deficits in (I) memory for the kinds of informa-

No abstract

No abstract

Items located within an array were presented to alcoholic Korsakoff and nonalcoholic mixed-etiology amnesics and to alcoholic and normal controls. Recognition memory for the locations of items was tested after incidental and intentional encoding. When equated on item recognition, neither Korsakoff amnesics nor alcoholic controls benefited from intentional, relative to incidental, encoding instructions. Furthermore, Korsakoff amnesics showed neither disproportionately impaired incidental nor intentional location recognition memory relative to alcoholic controls. In contrast, mixed-etiology amnesics profited significantly from intentional location acquisition relative to incidental instructions, and were impaired somewhat in incidental, but not intentional, location memory relative to normal controls. We discuss these data in relation to Mayes' (1992) contextual memory deficit hypothesis and Hirst's (1982) automatic encoding deficit account, and propose an alternative framework in which the location memory deficit observed in mixed-etiology amnesics is interpreted as a disruption to the ability to bind item and location information.

No abstract