Understanding How Prior Knowledge Influences Memory in Older Adults

Abstract

Older adults have a harder time than younger adults remembering specific events and experiences (episodic memory), whereas the ability to use one's general knowledge either improves or remains stable over the life span. Our focus is on the sometimes overlooked but critical possibility that this intact general knowledge can facilitate older adults' episodic memory performance. After reviewing literature that shows how prior knowledge can support remembering in aging as well as lead it astray, we consider open questions including whether prior knowledge is used only to fill in the gaps after a memory failure and when older adults might need to be instructed to apply their prior knowledge. Overall, we situate our claims within theories of cognitive aging, arguing that prior knowledge is a key factor in understanding older adults' memory performance, with the potential to serve as a compensatory mechanism.

Memory for Allergies and Health Foods: How Younger and Older Adults Strategically Remember Critical Health Information

“…This may have resulted from the schematic support afforded by the tasks' conceptual and health-related nature. Although apparently helpful in the current experiments, older adults' reliance on schematic support (Umanath & Marsh, 2014) might prevent them from properly attending to health information that is inconsistent with held beliefs (Rice & Okun, 1994;.…”

“…Thus, successful engagement in valuedirected remembering might be minimized, and age-related differences in the recall of allergens might be present. While reliance on schematic support has been shown to aid older adults' recall in certain situations (Loaiza, Rhodes, & Anglin, 2013;Umanath & Marsh, 2014), doing so in the current experiment could be detrimental should high-value allergens be forgotten in favor of any low-value allergens with which a participant happens to be more familiar.…”

“…This seemingly maintained ability to remember conceptual particulars is further strengthened by emotional components (May, Rahhal, Berry, & Leighton, 2005). Conceptual elements may be more likely to provide schematic support, from which older adults have been shown to greatly benefit (see Umanath & Marsh, 2014 for a recent review).…”

Supporting older and younger adults’ memory for recent everyday events: A prospective sampling study using SenseCam

“…Studies in which participants are required to generate scripts for routine events show that older and younger adults generate similar numbers of script items (Light & Anderson, 1983), and the script content is similar (Rosen, Caplan, Sheesley, Rodriguez, & Grafman, 2003), which suggests that access to generic event information is maintained in older age. Moreover, while both older and younger adults show a mnemonic benefit for material that is schemaconsistent, under some circumstances this effect may be greater for older adults (Badham, Hay, Foxon, Kaur, & Maylor, 2016;Umanath & Marsh, 2014). On the other hand, repeated experiences of similar events can make retrieval of specific instances more difficult (Farrar & Goodman, 1992;Willén, Granhag, & Strömwall, 2016).…”

Use of interactive computer simulation taking into account the whole body movement in the context of cognitive functioning

“…W przypadku przyswajania sobie nowej wiedzy przez osoby starsze dużym problemem jest tzw. hamowanie proaktywne [15]. Czyli uprzednio opanowana duża wiedza i doświadczenie utrudniają przyswojenie sobie wiedzy (w tym nawyków, schematów działania etc.…”