Synergistic effects of encoding strategy and context salience on associative memory in older adults.

Abstract

Older adults' deficits in memory for context and memory for inter-item associations are often assumed to be related, yet typically are examined in separate experiments. The present study combined associative recognition and list discrimination into a single task with conditions that varied in terms of item, pair, and context information, and independently manipulated context salience and encoding strategy between subjects in order to examine their effects on memory for associative information in young and older adults. Older adults' memory for pairs was found to be less affected than that of young adults by manipulations of context and associative information, but the age difference in context effects on pair memory was influenced by an interaction of encoding strategy and context salience. The results provide novel evidence that older adults' deficits in associative memory involve interactions between context and inter-item associations.

Modeling age differences in effects of pair repetition and proactive interference using a single parameter.

“…Indeed, the models we present for the Overman and Becker (2009) data, and for the data from the current experiment, do not include any retrieval mechanism during study (which could account for some of the model’s divergence from human performance in both age groups for the current experiment, given that study-phase retrieval might be expected to play a greater role with multiple study lists). Likewise, the study-phase retrieval mechanism that we added to the model for the Overman and Stephens (2013) data was minimal in terms of its assumptions about how prior study episodes are retrieved and re-encoded. All of these choices were intentional, to avoid adding any unnecessary assumptions to the model.…”

The effects of item familiarity on the neural correlates of successful associative memory encoding

“…By examining the neural underpinnings of item and pair repetition in associative memory, it may be possible to identify how the brain regions involved in item and pair familiarity support associative processes, which may allow more precisely targeted interventions to improve memory performance. For example, prior behavioral studies have demonstrated that age-related associative memory deficits are linked to the increased task complexity of associative memory over that of item memory, as well as to age-related reductions in processing resources (Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996;NavehBenjamin, 2000;Overman & Becker, 2009;Overman & Stephens, 2013). The present study has demonstrated reduced neural activity in several brain regions that have been shown to support associative encoding.…”

“…In an effort to examine ways to reduce the demands imposed by associative memory tasks, studies have employed both item and pair repetition during encoding (Earles & Kersten, 2008;Kilb & Naveh-Benjamin, 2011;Light, Patterson, Chung, & Healy, 2004;Overman & Becker, 2009;Overman & Stephens, 2013). Although pair repetition trains individuals on the specific item-item relationship through repeated exposure to the pairs, item repetition provides added exposure only to the individual items, thus eliminating the need to learn the items during later associative encoding.…”

Effects of repetition on age differences in associative recognition

“…In these studies, increasing pair strength also increased confidence for hits on intact pairs as well as the likelihood of a remember response for hits on such pairs. Young adults typically benefit from pair repetition in associative recognition tasks to a greater extent than do older adults (e.g., Fandakova, Shing, & Lindenberger, 2013b;Light et al, 2004;Overman & Becker, 2009;Overman & Stephens, 2013), although this finding is not invariably seen (e.g., Fandakova et al, 2013a;Kilb & Naveh-Benjamin, 2011). Indeed, some aspects of performance in older adults may actually worsen with repetition.…”