The Influence of Age on Memory for Distinctive Events

Overview

Journal Mem Cognit

Specialty Psychology

Date 2009 Feb 19

PMID 19223567

Citations 9

Authors

Lisa Geraci

Mark A McDaniel

Isabel Manzano

Henry L Roediger 3rd

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We examined whether memory for distinctive events is influenced by aging. To do so, we used a semantic isolation paradigm in which people show superior memory for a word when it is presented in a list of items from a different semantic category (e.g., the word table is presented in a list of all bird exemplars) as compared with when the same word (table) is presented in a list of unrelated words. Results showed that both younger and older adults demonstrated an isolation effect in memory, although older adults showed a numerically smaller isolation effect than did younger adults. Results suggest that in contrast with previous findings (Cimbalo & Brink, 1982), older adults can take advantage of this type of distinctiveness to aid memory performance.

Citing Articles

Older adults recover more marginal knowledge and use feedback more effectively than younger adults: evidence using "I don't know" vs. "I don't remember" for general knowledge questions.

Umanath S, Barrett T, Kim S, Walsh C, Coane J Front Psychol. 2023; 14:1145278.

PMID: 37325736 PMC: 10264585. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1145278.

Are age differences in recognition-based retrieval monitoring an epiphenomenon of age differences in memory?.

Hertzog C, Curley T, Dunlosky J Psychol Aging. 2021; 36(2):186-199.

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The Von Restorff effect in the Brazilian version of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test in an elderly population.

Lima G, Teldeschi A, Oliveira N, Bernardes C, Drummond C, Assuncao N Dement Neuropsychol. 2019; 13(1):89-96.

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A SEMantic and EPisodic Memory Test (SEMEP) Developed within the Embodied Cognition Framework: Application to Normal Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and Semantic Dementia.

Vallet G, Hudon C, Bier N, Macoir J, Versace R, Simard M Front Psychol. 2017; 8:1493.

PMID: 28955261 PMC: 5601419. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01493.

Revisiting von Restorff's early isolation effect.

Schmidt S, Schmidt C Mem Cognit. 2016; 45(2):194-207.

PMID: 27631791 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-016-0651-6.

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