Directed Forgetting and Aging: The Role of Retrieval Processes, Processing Speed, and Proactive Interference

Abstract

The directed forgetting effect obtained with the item method is supposed to depend on both selective rehearsal of to-be-remembered (TBR) items and attentional inhibition of to-be-forgotten (TBF) items. In this study, we investigated the locus of the directed forgetting deficit in older adults by exploring the influence of recollection and familiarity-based retrieval processes on age-related differences in directed forgetting. Moreover, we explored the influence of processing speed, short-term memory capacity, thought suppression tendencies, and sensitivity to proactive interference on performance. The results indicated that older adults' directed forgetting difficulties are due to decreased recollection of TBR items, associated with increased automatic retrieval of TBF items. Moreover, processing speed and proactive interference appeared to be responsible for the decreased recall of TBR items.

S 18986 reverses spatial working memory impairments in aged mice: comparison with memantine

“…It has been already shown that aging induced an increase in the vulnerability to interference in rodents (Winocur 1986;Matzel et al 2008), monkeys (Moss et al 1988), and humans (Emery et al 2008;Hogge et al 2008). Our study extends these findings to mice and spatial working memory.…”

“…) interfere with the recollection of the target (to be remembered N-1) trial, leading to decreased alternation rates. According to the data, aged animals exhibit an heightened vulnerability to proactive interference as compared to young ones; such a finding is congruent with data drawn in studies of human working memory (i.e., n-back task, face recognition, or delayed matching to sample task) showing that older adults exhibit decreased recollection of to-be-remembered items, associated with increased automatic retrieval of the to-beforgotten ones (Gazzaley et al 2005;Hogge et al 2008). As working memory is mainly sustained by the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus activity, the impairment observed during ageing could be due to a dysfunction of either these brain structures or of their related connectivity (West 1996;Yoon et al 2008;Leshikar et al 2010).…”

Inhibitory control of memory in normal ageing: Dissociation between impaired intentional and preserved unintentional processes

“…Indeed, elderly participants performed similarly to young subjects on inhibition of return and negative priming tasks (Connelly & Hasher, 1993;Faust & Balota, 1997;Langley, Overmier, Knopman, & Prod'Homme, 1998;Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998), which can be considered to be relatively unintentional (see nevertheless Maylor, Schlaghecken & Watson, 2005, for an observation of impaired performance on unintentional perceptual and motor tasks), while they encountered difficulties when the task requires an inhibitory mechanism that must be triggered intentionally (such as the Stroop or antisaccade tasks; Olincy, Ros, Young, & Freedman, 1997;Spieler et al, 1996). Moreover, this dissociation between preserved unintentional and impaired intentional inhibitory processes was confirmed in recent studies that administered these two kinds of tasks to a single group of young and elderly subjects (Andrès et al, 2008;Collette et al 2008;Hogge, Salmon, & Collette, in press b).…”

“…In these tasks, information that subjects have to process are first presented and next followed by a cue indicating if the information must (or not) be kept in memory for later recall or recognition. Thus, greater directed forgetting effects were reported in elderly than young subjects with working memory (Andrès, Van der Linden, & Parmentier, 2004) and episodic memory tasks when the item method (in which the "remember" or "forget" cue directly follows the presentation of each item) of the directed forgetting paradigm was used (Earles & Kersten, 2002;Gamboz & Russo, 2002;Hogge, Adam, & Collette, 2008;Sego, Golding, & Gottlob, 2006;, experiment 1) but not when the list method (in which the cue is presented after the whole list of items) was used (Sego et al, 2006;Zellner & Bäuml, 2006;see, however, Zacks et al, 1996, experiment 2). Otherwise, studies that measured inhibitory effects in memory using the fan effect (e.g., Anderson, 1974) demonstrated that the retrieval of previously learned memories in older adults is slowed by the enrichment of target information with irrelevant associations .…”

Proactive and retroactive interference in young adults, healthy older adults, and older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment

“…Indeed, PI can be related to diffi culties applying important contextual or source information to discriminate between lists (Hogge et al, 2008 ). Using data from these same individuals, we have recently shown selective impairments in intentional retrieval (recollection) but sparing of familiarity in aMCI relative to healthy aging when source discrimination is required (Anderson et al, 2008 ).…”