Collaboration reduces the frequency of false memories in older and younger adults.

Abstract

Older (mean age = 74.23) and younger (mean age = 33.50) participants recalled items from 6 briefly exposed household scenes either alone or with their spouses. Collaborative recall was compared with the pooled, nonredundant recall of spouses remembering alone (nominal groups). The authors examined hits, self-generated false memories, and false memories produced by another person's (actually a computer program's) misleading recollections. Older adults reported fewer hits and more self-generated false memories than younger adults. Relative to nominal groups, older and younger collaborating groups reported fewer hits and fewer self-generated false memories. Collaboration also reduced older people's computer-initiated false memories. The memory conversations in the collaborative groups were analyzed for evidence that collaboration inhibits the production of errors and/or promotes quality control processes that detect and eliminate errors. Only older adults inhibited the production of wrong answers, but both age groups eliminated errors during their discussions. The partners played an important role in helping rememberers discard false memories in older and younger couples. The results support the use of collaboration to reduce false recall in both younger and older adults.

When two is too many: Collaborative encoding impairs memory

“…As in previous studies (Ross, Spencer, Blatz, & Restorick, 2008), errors in collaborative recall were significantly lower than in nominal recall [t (115) …”

Both young and older adults discount suggestions from older adults on a social memory test

“…First, young and older adults were equally likely to incorporate others' misleading suggestions into their own memory reports. This finding, though contrary to our prediction, is not unprecedented, given the equivocal nature of age-related changes in social false-memory paradigms (e.g., Gabbert et al, 2003;Henkel & Rajaram, 2011;Meade & Roediger, 2009;Ross et al, 2008) and in the related misinformation paradigm (see Roediger & Geraci, 2007, for a review).…”

“…Older adults are generally more susceptible to memory errors than are young adults in individual false memory paradigms (Roediger & McDaniel, 2007). However, research on age differences across social memory paradigms has yielded mixed evidence-namely that, relative to young adults, older adults in social falsememory paradigms are more susceptible (Meade & Roediger, 2009), less susceptible (Gabbert et al, 2004;Ross, Spencer, Blatz, & Restorick, 2008), or equally susceptible (Gabbert et al, 2003) to false memories.…”

“…Specifically, Meade and Roediger (2009) utilized a turn-taking procedure rather than the free-for-all discussion employed by Ross et al (2008), and thus, spontaneous error correction by a collaborator was precluded (cf. Thorley & Dewhurst, 2007).…”

Age differences in collaborative memory: the role of retrieval manipulations

“…This term refers to the hypothesis that an individual's natural retrieval order is interrupted in collaborative situations with little structure, which may explain why collaborative inhibition occurs: The individual's organizational scheme for retrieval is derailed when others are responding with their recollections. Although few direct comparisons exist, one hypothesis may be that cued recall with category name cues in a strict order may reduce collaborative inhibition by providing collaborators with an organizational scheme to guide retrieval (although see Ross et al, 2008, for an exception). When collaborators are free to use the category names in any order, the disruption between partners may occur.…”