Item and Associative Memory Decline in Healthy Aging

Abstract

This chapter reviews the behavioral and neuroimaging literature examining age differences in item and associative memory. Furthermore, when possible the review breaks down differences at the encoding and the retrieval phases of memory. With respect to behavioral findings, age‐related differences in memory performance are discussed in terms of encoding support, resource allocation, and testing format. Age‐related benefits from contextual support and semantic processing strategies are also outlined. With respect to the neuroimaging findings, the review focuses on age‐related differences in activation and recruitment of the medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex. When possible, these differences are discussed in the context of methods that may mitigate age deficits in neural recruitment. Differences in neural processes for associative memory are described in terms of decreased frontal activation and the impact of various encoding strategies on these neural activations. We conclude with future directions that would support a more nuanced understanding of the described age differences.

Age doesn’t matter much: hybrid visual and memory search is preserved in older adults

“…Nevertheless, the age deficit in associative recognition was still evident when pictures were used as memoranda (Naveh-Benjamin et al, 2003;Ratcliff & McGoon, 2015). It has been argued that if an effective strategy is accessible to both YA and OA, either by spontaneous/incidental usage or by training, age differences can be reduced, even in associative memory tasks (Dennis & McCormick-Huhn, 2018;Naveh-Benjamin, Brav, & Levy, 2007). Perhaps, within the search task context, the picture material promoted the incidental build-up of perceptually and semantically relatively rich target representations.…”

The QuadMax Task: A Novel Parametric Manipulation of Associative Memory Load in Adults Across the Lifespan

“…This finding is consistent with there being an associative memory deficit in aging (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) given that all of the task conditions (set sizes) used here involved forming an association between multiple items. Unlike the paired-associative (e.g., Dennis & McCormick-Huhn, 2018;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008;Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996) and triplet-associative (Silva et al, 2019) memory literatures, however, we did not include an item memory condition in this study for comparison given our interest in differences among higher-order associations. Nonetheless, because we did not observe a significant interaction between age group and set size for the associative memory or recombined FA measures, our results suggest that these associative memory deficits may not be amplified in older adults for higher-order associations, as would have been expected if their associative binding deficit was more pronounced at higher associative loads.…”

“…Associative memory is measured as the ability to recognize repeated study pairs (DOG -HAT) relative to recombined pairs comprised of one item from each of two previously studied pairs (DOG -PIN). Adults of all ages perform worse on the associative compared to item memory probes, with the largest difference between these task conditions seen in older adults (Dennis & McCormick-Huhn, 2018;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008;Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996;Hoyer & Verhaeghen, 2006;Guez & Naveh-Benjamin, 2016;Wang, Dew, & Giovanello, 2010;Wang & Giovanello, 2016;Bender, Naveh-Benjamin, & Raz, 2010). Difficulty remembering which pairs of items were previously presented together has been attributed to a specific impairment in binding processes that support associative, but not non-associative (item), memory; with larger binding deficits in older adults formally referred to as the associative deficit hypotheses of aging (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000).…”