Differences in strategic abilities but not associative processes explain memory development

AbstractChildren’s learning capabilities change while growing up. One framework that describes the cognitive and neural development of children’s growing learning abilities is the two-component model. It distinguishes processes that integrate separate features into a coherent memory representation (associative component) and executive abilities, such as elaboration, evaluation and monitoring, that support memory processing (strategic component). In an fMRI study using an object-location association paradigm, we investigated how the two components influence memory performance across development. We tested children (10-12 yrs., n=31), late adolescents (18 yrs., n=29) and adults (25+ yrs., n=30) of either sex. For studying the associative component, we also probed how the utilisation of prior knowledge (schemas) facilitates memory across age groups. Children had overall lower retrieval performance, while adolescents and adults did not differ from each other. All groups benefitted from schemas, but this effect did not differ between groups. Performance differences between groups were associated with deactivation of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which in turn was linked to executive functioning. These patterns were stronger in adolescents and adults and seemed absent in children. This pattern of results suggests the children’s executive system, the strategic component, is not as mature and thus cannot facilitate memory performance in the same way as in adolescents/adults. In contrast, we did not find age-related differences in the associative component; with activity in the angular gyrus predicting memory performance systematically across groups. Overall our results suggest that differences of executive rather than associative abilities explain memory differences between children, adolescents and adults.

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Reexamination of Accelerometer Calibration with Energy Expenditure as Criterion: VO2net Instead of MET for Age-Equivalent Physical Activity Intensity

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19153377 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (15) ◽

pp. 3377 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Daniel Arvidsson ◽

Jonatan Fridolfsson ◽

Christoph Buck ◽

Örjan Ekblom ◽

Elin Ekblom-Bak ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Age Groups ◽

Accelerometer Data ◽

Physical Activity Intensity ◽

Free Living ◽

Activity Intensity ◽

Age Related ◽

Younger Age ◽

Metabolic Equivalent Of Task ◽

Adolescents And Adults

Accelerometer calibration for physical activity (PA) intensity is commonly performed using Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) as criterion. However, MET is not an age-equivalent measure of PA intensity, which limits the use of MET-calibrated accelerometers for age-related PA investigations. We investigated calibration using VO2net (VO2gross − VO2stand; mL⋅min−1⋅kg−1) as criterion compared to MET (VO2gross/VO2rest) and the effect on assessment of free-living PA in children, adolescents and adults. Oxygen consumption and hip/thigh accelerometer data were collected during rest, stand and treadmill walk and run. Equivalent speed (Speedeq) was used as indicator of the absolute speed (Speedabs) performed with the same effort in individuals of different body size/age. The results showed that VO2net was higher in younger age-groups for Speedabs, but was similar in the three age-groups for Speedeq. MET was lower in younger age-groups for both Speedabs and Speedeq. The same VO2net-values respective MET-values were applied to all age-groups to develop accelerometer PA intensity cut-points. Free-living moderate-and-vigorous PA was 216, 115, 74 and 71 min/d in children, adolescents, younger and older adults with VO2net-calibration, but 140, 83, 74 and 41 min/d with MET-calibration, respectively. In conclusion, VO2net calibration of accelerometers may provide age-equivalent measures of PA intensity/effort for more accurate age-related investigations of PA in epidemiological research.

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Cognitive aging and verbal labeling in continuous visual memory

Memory & Cognition ◽

10.3758/s13421-020-01043-3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 48 (7) ◽

pp. 1196-1213

Author(s):

Alicia Forsberg ◽

Wendy Johnson ◽

Robert H. Logie

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Aging ◽

Visual Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Age Related

Abstract The decline of working memory (WM) is a common feature of general cognitive decline, and visual and verbal WM capacity appear to decline at different rates with age. Visual material may be remembered via verbal codes or visual traces, or both. Souza and Skóra, Cognition, 166, 277–297 (2017) found that labeling boosted memory in younger adults by activating categorical visual long-term memory (LTM) knowledge. Here, we replicated this and tested whether it held in healthy older adults. We compared performance in silence, under instructed overt labeling (participants were asked to say color names out loud), and articulatory suppression (repeating irrelevant syllables to prevent labeling) in the delayed estimation paradigm. Overt labeling improved memory performance in both age groups. However, comparing the effect of overt labeling and suppression on the number of coarse, categorical representations in the two age groups suggested that older adults used verbal labels subvocally more than younger adults, when performing the task in silence. Older adults also appeared to benefit from labels differently than younger adults. In younger adults labeling appeared to improve visual, continuous memory, suggesting that labels activated visual LTM representations. However, for older adults, labels did not appear to enhance visual, continuous representations, but instead boosted memory via additional verbal (categorical) memory traces. These results challenged the assumption that visual memory paradigms measure the same cognitive ability in younger and older adults, and highlighted the importance of controlling differences in age-related strategic preferences in visual memory tasks.

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I know your face but can’t remember your name: Age-related differences in the FNAME-12NL

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology ◽

10.1093/arclin/acaa107 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

S Enriquez-Geppert ◽

J F Flores-Vázquez ◽

M Lietz ◽

M Garcia-Pimenta ◽

P Andrés

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Associative Memory ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Systematic Investigation ◽

Age Effects ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Effects Of Aging

Abstract Objective The Face-Name Associative Memory test (FNAME) has recently received attention as a test for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. So far, however, there has been no systematic investigation of the effects of aging. Here, we aimed to assess the extent to which the FNAME performance is modulated by normal ageing. Method In a first step, we adapted the FNAME material to the Dutch population. In a second step, younger (n = 29) and older adults (n = 29) were compared on recall and recognition performance. Results Significant age effects on name recall were observed after the first exposure of new face-name pairs: younger adults remembered eight, whereas older adults remembered a mean of four out of twelve names. Although both age groups increased the number of recalled names with repeated face-name exposure, older adults did not catch up with the performance of the younger adults, and the age-effects remained stable. Despite of that, both age groups maintained their performance after a 30-min delay. Considering recognition, no age differences were demonstrated, and both age groups succeeded in the recognition of previously shown faces and names when presented along with distractors. Conclusions This study presents for the first time the results of different age groups regarding cross-modal associative memory performance on the FNAME. The recall age effects support the hypothesis of age-related differences in associative memory. To use the FNAME as an early cognitive biomarker, further subscales are suggested to increase sensitivity and specificity in the clinical context.

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Effects of Aging and Divided Attention on Recognition Memory Processes for Single and Associative Information

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/04.10.22.pr0.108.2.405-419 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 108 (2) ◽

pp. 405-419 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hikari Kinjo

Keyword(s):

Associative Memory ◽

Divided Attention ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Recognition Task ◽

Female College Students ◽

Age Related ◽

Single Feature ◽

Relative Deficiency ◽

Effects Of Aging

In the divided attention paradigm to test age-related associative memory deficits, whether the effects of divided attention occur at encoding or retrieval has not been clarified, and the effect on retention has not been studied. This study explored whether and how much divided attention at either encoding, retention, or retrieval diminished accuracy in recognizing a single feature (object or location) and associated features (object + location) by 23 elderly people (13 women; M age = 70.6 yr., SD = 2.8) recruited from a neighborhood community circle, and 29 female college students ( M age = 20.8 yr., SD = 1.1). The results showed a significant decline in memory performance for both age groups due to divided attention in location and associative memory at retention, suggesting that the retention process demands attentional resources. Overall, regardless of their relative deficiency in associative memory, older adults showed an effect of divided attention comparable to that of younger adults in a recognition task.

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Age-Related Changes in Neural Networks Supporting Complex Visual and Social Processing in Adolescence

10.1101/650887 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yulia Lerner ◽

K. Suzanne Scherf ◽

Mikhail Katkov ◽

Uri Hasson ◽

Marlene Behrmann

Keyword(s):

Neural Development ◽

Age Groups ◽

Critical Question ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Age Related ◽

Brain Responses ◽

Adolescent Groups ◽

Age Appropriate ◽

Almost All ◽

The Brain

AbstractDespite our differences, there is much about the natural visual world that almost all observers apparently perceive in common. This coherence across observers is evidenced by the finding that, across adults, approximately 30% of the brain is activated in a consistent fashion in response to viewing naturalistic input. The critical question addressed here is how does this consistency emerge and is this pattern of coherence apparent from early in development or does it evolve with time and/or experience? We focused our investigation at a key developmental juncture that might bridge the child and adult patterns, namely, the period of adolescence. We acquired fMRI BOLD data evoked by an 11-minute age-appropriate movie in younger (age 9-14 years) and older adolescents (age 15-19 years) and in adults. Using an intra-subject correlation approach, we characterized the consistency of the neural response within-individual (across two separate runs of the movie), and then, using an inter-subject correlation approach, evaluated the similarity of the response profile within individuals of the same age group and between age-groups. In primary sensory areas (A1+, V1) the response profiles in both groups of adolescents were highly similar to those of the adults, suggesting that these areas are functionally mature at earlier stages of the development. In contrast, some other regions exhibited higher within-age correlations in the adolescent groups than in the adult group. Last, we evaluated the brain responses across the whole cortex and identified the different patterns of maturation as reflected in different inter-subject correlations across the age groups. Together, these findings provide a fine-grained characterization of functional neural development. The approach offers the potential for careful tracking of the development of widespread cortical networks that support the emerging stereotypical responses to naturalistic visual and social stimuli and has important implications for future studies of cortical development.

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Does predictive cueing of encoding stimulus duration modulate alpha power and facilitate visual working memory performance in younger and older adults?

10.31234/osf.io/3c27r ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sabrina Sghirripa ◽

Lynton Graetz ◽

Nigel Rogasch ◽

John Semmler ◽

Mitchell Goldsworthy

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Visual Working Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Alpha Power ◽

Retention Period ◽

Match To Sample ◽

Age Related ◽

Oscillatory Power

Both selective attention and visual working memory (WM) performance are vulnerable to age related decline. Older adults perform worse on, and are less able to modulate oscillatory power in the alpha frequency range (8-12 Hz) than younger adults in WM tasks involving predictive cues about ‘where’ or ‘when’ a stimulus will be present. However, no study has investigated whether alpha power is modulated by cues predicting ‘how long’ an encoding duration will be. To test this, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while 24 younger (aged 18-33 years) and 23 older (aged 60-77 years) adults completed a modified delay match-to-sample task where participants were cued to the duration (either 0.1 s or 0.5 s) of an encoding stimulus consisting of 4 coloured squares. We found: (1) predictive cues increased WM capacity, but long encoding duration trials led to reduced WM capacity in both age groups, compared to short encoding duration trials; (2) no evidence for differences in preparatory alpha power between predictive and neutral cues for either short or long encoding durations, but preparatory alpha suppression was weaker in older adults; (3) retention period oscillatory power differed between short and long encoding duration trials, but these differences were no longer present when comparing the trial types from the onset of the encoding stimulus; and (4) oscillatory power in the preparatory and retention periods were not related to task performance. Our results suggest that preparatory alpha power is not modulated by predictive cues towards encoding duration during visual WM, however, reductions in alpha/beta oscillatory power during visual WM retention may be linked to the encoding stimulus, rather than a process specific to WM retention.

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HIPPOCAMPAL GLUTAMATE MODULATION DURING MEMORY ENCODING: ASSOCIATION WITH AGE AND SUBFIELD VOLUMES

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.3095 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S840-S841

Author(s):

Chaitali Anand ◽

Roya Homayouni ◽

Qijing Yu ◽

Sruthi Ramesh ◽

Dalal Khatib ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Dentate Gyrus ◽

Age Differences ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Learning Task ◽

Resonance Spectroscopy ◽

Association Learning ◽

Age Related ◽

Younger Age

Abstract Hippocampal glutamatergic activity plays a pivotal role in memory consolidation, including the ability to form novel associations that declines with age. To test whether glutamatergic dysfunction may underpin age-related memory declines, we examined in vivo age differences in hippocampal glutamate modulation during encoding of associations, and its relationship with hippocampal subfield volumes. Proton functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy was performed on 32 young (25.1±2.8 years; 18 females) and 16 older (65.9±2.7 years; 7 females) adults to measure changes in hippocampal (randomly assigned right or left) glutamate during an object-location paired association learning task (with 12 cycles of encoding-retrieval epochs). Volumes of the dentate gyrus&CA3, CA1, subiculum, and entorhinal cortex were manually measured from T2-weighted MRI images. Memory performance differed between the age-groups [F(1, 46)=8.56, p<.01], with the older attaining a lower asymptote [t(46)=2.93, p<.05] compared to the younger. Age differences in glutamate were observed only during encoding (age-group x epoch: F(3,137)=5.28, p<.01), and varied over the epochs. Young adults showed increased glutamate during the first four encoding epochs of each cycle, with levels remaining high thereafter. Old adults evidenced a decrease in glutamate during the first four epochs, and a slow, sustained ramping-up afterwards. Including both age-groups, the maximum change in glutamate, calculated using the maximum and minimum levels during encoding, was positively associated with CA1 [F(2,39)=4.28, p<.05] and the dentate gyrus&CA3 volume [F(2,39)=4.4, p<.05], after correcting for multiple comparisons. Glutamate modulation specific to encoding may underlie age-related memory declines and be related to selected hippocampal subfield volumes.

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Effects of Age on Prestimulus Neural Activity Predictive of Successful Memory Encoding: An fMRI Study

Cerebral Cortex ◽

10.1093/cercor/bhaa265 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

E Song Liu ◽

Joshua D Koen ◽

Michael D Rugg

Keyword(s):

Neural Activity ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Blood Oxygen Level Dependent ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

Blood Oxygen Level ◽

Age Related ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Left Hippocampus ◽

Dependent Signal ◽

Left Angular Gyrus

Abstract Prestimulus subsequent memory effects (SMEs)—differences in neural activity preceding the onset of study items that are predictive of later memory performance—have consistently been reported in young adults. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment investigated potential age-related differences in prestimulus SMEs. During study, healthy young and older participants made one of two semantic judgments on images, with the judgment signaled by a preceding cue. In test phase, participants first made an item recognition judgment and, for each item judged old, a source memory judgment. Age-invariant prestimulus SMEs were observed in left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, left hippocampus, and right subgenual cortex. In each case, the effects reflected lower blood oxygen level dependent signal for later recognized items, regardless of source accuracy, than for unrecognized items. A similar age-invariant pattern was observed in left orbitofrontal cortex, but this effect was specific to items attracting a correct source response compared to unrecognized items. In contrast, the left angular gyrus and fusiform cortex demonstrated negative prestimulus SMEs that were exclusive to young participants. The findings indicate that age differences in prestimulus SMEs are regionally specific and suggest that prestimulus SMEs reflect multiple cognitive processes, only some of which are vulnerable to advancing age.

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The Development of Control Processes Supporting Source Memory Discrimination as Revealed by Event-related Potentials

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2007.19.8.1286 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 19 (8) ◽

pp. 1286-1301 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Marianne de Chastelaine ◽

David Friedman ◽

Yael M. Cycowicz

Keyword(s):

Source Memory ◽

Response Selection ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Control Processes ◽

Adolescents And Adults ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Adults And Children

Improvement in source memory performance throughout childhood is thought to be mediated by the development of executive control. As postretrieval control processes may be better time-locked to the recognition response rather than the retrieval cue, the development of processes underlying source memory was investigated with both stimulus- and response-locked event-related potentials (ERPs). These were recorded in children, adolescents, and adults during a recognition memory exclusion task. Green- and red-outlined pictures were studied, but were tested in black outline. The test requirement was to endorse old items shown in one study color (“targets”) and to reject new items along with old items shown in the alternative study color (“nontargets”). Source memory improved with age. All age groups retrieved target and nontarget memories as reflected by reliable parietal episodic memory (EM) effects, a stimulus-locked ERP correlate of recollection. Response-locked ERPs to targets and nontargets diverged in all groups prior to the response, although this occurred at an increasingly earlier time point with age. We suggest these findings reflect the implementation of attentional control mechanisms to enhance target memories and facilitate response selection with the greatest and least success, respectively, in adults and children. In adults only, response-locked ERPs revealed an early-onsetting parietal negativity for nontargets, but not for targets. This was suggested to reflect adults' ability to consistently inhibit prepotent target responses for nontargets. The findings support the notion that the development of source memory relies on the maturation of control processes that serve to enhance accurate selection of task-relevant memories.

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Effects of age on pre-stimulus neural activity predictive of successful memory encoding: an fMRI study

10.1101/2020.05.18.102939 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

E. Song Liu ◽

Joshua D. Koen ◽

Michael D. Rugg

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processes ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

Memory Encoding ◽

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Age Related ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Left Hippocampus ◽

Left Angular Gyrus

AbstractPre-stimulus subsequent memory effects (SMEs) – differences in neural activity preceding the onset of study items that are predictive of later memory performance – have consistently been reported in young adults. The present fMRI experiment investigated potential age-related differences in pre-stimulus SMEs. During study, healthy young and older participants made one of two semantic judgments on images, with the judgment signaled by a preceding cue. In the test phase, participants first made an item recognition judgment and, for each item judged old, a source memory judgment. Age-invariant pre-stimulus SMEs were observed in left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, left hippocampus, and right subgenual cortex. In each case, the effects reflected lower BOLD signal for later recognized items, regardless of source accuracy, than unrecognized items. A similar age-invariant pattern was observed in left orbitofrontal cortex, but the effect in this region was specific to items attracting a correct source response compared to unrecognized items. In contrast, the left angular gyrus and fusiform cortex demonstrated negative pre-stimulus SMEs that were exclusive to young participants. The findings indicate that age differences in pre-stimulus SMEs are regionally specific and suggest that pre-stimulus SMEs reflect multiple cognitive processes, only some of which are vulnerable to advancing age.

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