A Reexamination of Source Monitoring Deficits in the Elderly: Evidence for Independent Age Deficits of Item and Source Memory

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.J. Tree ◽  
T.J. Perfect
Keyword(s):  
Source Memory ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Correct Recall ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Item Information ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Deficits

AbstractWithin the experimental literature there is substantial evidence of larger age-related deficits in retrieving source information relative to item-based information. However, this evidence is potentially subject to methodological criticism given that several studies have argued for the presence of source-monitoring deficits by examining source memory contingent on correct recall of item information but not the reverse. In order to address this potential shortcoming our study examines recall of both item information contingent on correct source judgement and source-based information contingent on correct recall of item information. We demonstrate that when this novel type of analysis is conducted, there are age deficits for both source and item information, and no evidence of a selectively greater source-monitoring deficit in the elderly. The results are discussed with reference to two overarching theoretical positions concerning age-related deficits in memory performance.

Metacognitive inferences in source memory judgements: The role of perceived differences in item recognition

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (7) ◽  
pp. 1015-1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Meiser ◽  
Christine Sattler ◽  
Ulrich Von Hecker
Keyword(s):  
Source Memory ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
Item Recognition ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Monitoring Model ◽  
Metacognitive Beliefs ◽  
Presentation Time ◽  
Different Sources

This research investigated the hypothesis that metacognitive inferences in source memory judgements are based on the recognition or nonrecognition of an event together with perceived or expected differences in the recognizability of events from different sources. The hypothesis was tested with a multinomial source-monitoring model that allowed separation of source-guessing tendencies for recognized and unrecognized items. Experiments 1A and 1B manipulated the number of item presentations as relevant source information and revealed differential guessing tendencies for recognized and unrecognized items, with a bias to attribute unrecognized items to the source associated with poor item recognition. Experiments 2A and 2B replicated the findings with a manipulation of presentation time and extended the analysis to subjective differences in item recognition. Experiments 3A and 3B used more natural source information by varying type of acoustic signal and demonstrated that subjective theories about differences in item recognition are sufficient to elicit differential source-guessing biases for recognized and unrecognized items. Together the findings provide new insights into the cognitive processes underlying source memory decisions, which involve episodic memory and reconstructive tendencies based on metacognitive beliefs and general world knowledge.

Only social feedback reduces age-related prospective memory deficits in “Virtual Week”

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 759-767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Niedźwieńska ◽  
Peter G. Rendell ◽  
Krystian Barzykowski ◽  
Alicja Leszczyńska
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Prospective Memory ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Feedback Group ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Memory For Intentions

ABSTRACTBackground:Prospective memory, or remembering to do things in the future, is crucial for independent living in old age. Although there is evidence of substantial age-related deficits in memory for intentions, older adults have demonstrated the ability to compensate for their deficits in everyday life. The present study investigated feedback as a strategy for facilitating prospective memory in the elderly.Method:Young and older adults played a computer-based task, Virtual Week, in which they had to remember to carry out life-like intentions. After each virtual day, specific feedback on prospective memory performance was automatically provided on the computer screen that participants either proceeded through by themselves (non-social feedback) or were taken through by an experimenter (social feedback). The control group received no feedback.Results:We found that, compared with no-feedback group, only social feedback substantially reduced the age-related deficit in prospective memory. Older adults significantly benefited from feedback provided by the experimenter on the tasks of intermediate difficulty. Unexpectedly, prospective memory with non-social feedback was not only worse than with social feedback, but it was not any better than without any feedback at all.Conclusions:The results extended previous findings on the effectiveness of feedback in improving the memory performance of older adults to include memory for intentions. Despite the feedback meeting the critical recommendations of being specific, objective, and well-targeted, it was ineffective when the feedback displayed on the computer was not introduced by the experimenter. This has implications for computerized training tasks where automated feedback is considered crucial.

scholarly journals The more you know: Investigating why adults get a bigger memory boost from semantic congruency than children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Chun Wang ◽  
Simona Ghetti ◽  
Garvin Brod ◽  
Silvia A. Bunge
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Age Related ◽  
With Memory

AbstractHumans possess the capacity to employ prior knowledge in the service of our ability to remember; thus, memory is oftentimes superior for information that is semantically congruent with our prior knowledge. This congruency benefit grows during development, but little is understood about neurodevelopmental differences that underlie this growth. Here, we sought to explore the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. To this end, we examined the neural substrates of semantically congruent vs. incongruent item-context associations in 116 children and 25 young adults who performed encoding and retrieval tasks during functional MRI data collection. Participants encoded item-context pairs by judging whether an item belonged in a scene. Episodic memory was then tested with a source memory task. Consistent with prior work, source memory accuracy improved with age, and was greater for congruent than incongruent pairs; further, this congruency benefit was greater in adults than children. Age-related differences were observed across univariate, functional connectivity, and multivariate analyses, particularly in lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). In sum, our results revealed two general age differences. First, left ventrolateral/rostrolateral PFC exhibited age-related increases in univariate activity, as well as greater functional connectivity with temporal regions during the processing of congruency. Second, right rostrolateral PFC activation was associated with successfully encoded congruent associations in adults, but not children. Finally, multivariate analyses provided evidence for stronger veridical memory in adults than children in right ventrolateral PFC. These effects in right lateral PFC were significantly correlated with memory performance, implicating them in the process of remembering congruent associations. These results connect brain regions associated with top-down control in the congruency benefit and age-related improvements therein.

scholarly journals The Impact of Focusing on Different Features During Encoding on Young and Older Adults’ Source Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Mitchell ◽  
Erin M. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Experienced Difficulty

AbstractAge-related source memory deficits result, in part, because young and older adults attend to different information. We asked whether focusing young and older adults‘ attention on specific features at encoding would result in similar subjective experiences of the vividness of the features and how this might affect source memory. Ratings of the vividness of visual detail, emotion, and associations were similar for young and older adults both when they were perceiving pictures and when they were thinking about them after a brief delay. Although young adults had better source memory than older adults, source accuracy did not differ depending on feature attended, and correlations between ratings and source memory showed that focus on the different types of information was equally predictive of source memory accuracy for young and older adults. Although preliminary, the results suggest that when attention is focused on specific information at encoding, young and older adults later use the various categories of source-specifying information similarly in making source attributions. Nevertheless, older adults did worse on the source test, suggesting they had less discriminable source information overall, this information was not well bound, and/or they experienced difficulty in strategic retrieval and monitoring processes.

scholarly journals Age differences in retrieval-related reinstatement reflect age-related dedifferentiation at encoding

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Hill ◽  
Danielle R. King ◽  
Michael D. Rugg
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Neural Differentiation ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Independent Manner ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Dependent ◽  
With Memory ◽  
Age Independent

AbstractAge-related reductions in neural specificity have been linked to cognitive decline. We examined whether age differences in specificity of retrieval-related cortical reinstatement could be explained by analogous differences at encoding, and whether reinstatement was associated with memory performance in an age-dependent or age-independent manner. Young and older adults underwent fMRI as they encoded words paired with images of faces or scenes. During a subsequent scanned memory test participants judged whether test words were studied or unstudied and, for words judged studied, also made a source memory judgment about the associated image category. Using multi-voxel pattern analyses, we identified a robust age-related decline in scene reinstatement. This decline was fully explained by age differences in neural differentiation at encoding. These results suggest that, regardless of age, the specificity with which events are neurally processed at the time of encoding determines the fidelity of cortical reinstatement at retrieval.

scholarly journals Effects of age on goal-dependent modulation of episodic memory retrieval

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabina Srokova ◽  
Paul F. Hill ◽  
Rachael L. Elward ◽  
Michael D. Rugg
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Location Task ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Scene Information ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Spatial Locations ◽  
Parahippocampal Place Area

AbstractRetrieval gating refers to the ability to modulate the retrieval of features of a single memory episode according to behavioral goals. Recent findings demonstrate that younger adults engage retrieval gating by attenuating the representation of task-irrelevant features of an episode. Here, we examine whether retrieval gating varies with age. Younger and older adults incidentally encoded words superimposed over scenes or scrambled backgrounds that were displayed in one of three spatial locations. Participants subsequently underwent fMRI as they completed two memory tasks: the background task, which tested memory for the word’s background, and the location task, testing memory for the word’s location. Employing univariate and multivariate approaches, we demonstrated that younger, but not older adults, exhibited attenuated reinstatement of scene information when it was goal-irrelevant (during the location task). Additionally, in younger adults only, the strength of scene reinstatement in the parahippocampal place area during the background task was related to item and source memory performance. Together, these findings point to an age-related decline in the ability to engage retrieval gating.

scholarly journals The effect of disagreement on children's source memory performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Mahr ◽  
Olivier Mascaro ◽  
Hugo Mercier ◽  
Gergely Csibra
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Communicative Context

AbstractSource representations play a role both in the formation of individual beliefs as well as in the social transmission of such beliefs. Both of these functions suggest that source information should be particularly useful in the context of interpersonal disagreement. Three experiments with an identical design (one original study and two replications) with 3- to 4-year-old-children (N = 100) assessed whether children’s source memory performance would improve in the face of disagreement and whether such an effect interacts with different types of sources (first- vs. second-hand). In a 2 x 2 repeated-measures design, children found out about the contents of a container either by looking inside or being told (IV1). Then they were questioned about the contents of the container by an interlocutor puppet who either agreed or disagreed with their answer (IV2). We measured children’s source memory performance in response to a free recall question (DV1) followed by a forced-choice question (DV2). Four-year-olds (but not three-year-olds) performed better in response to the free recall source memory question (but not the forced-choice question) when their interlocutor had disagreed with them compared to when it had agreed with them. Children were also better at recalling ‘having been told’ than ‘having seen’. These results demonstrate that source memory capacities become sensitive to the communicative context of assertions over development.

scholarly journals The Executive Control of Face Memory

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Z. Rapcsak ◽  
Emily C. Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Lobe ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
Facial Recognition ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Functional Decline ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Constructive Process

Patients with frontal lobe damage and cognitively normal elderly individuals demonstrate increased susceptibility to false facial recognition. In this paper we review neuropsychological evidence consistent with the notion that the common functional impairment underlying face memory distortions in both subject populations is a context recollection/source monitoring deficit, coupled with excessive reliance on relatively preserved facial familiarity signals in recognition decisions. In particular, we suggest that due to the breakdown of strategic memory retrieval, monitoring, and decision operations, individuals with frontal lobe impairment caused by focal damage or age-related functional decline do not have a reliable mechanism for attributing the experience of familiarity to the correct context or source. Memory illusions are mostly apparent under conditions of uncertainty when the face cue does not directly elicit relevant identity-specific contextual information, leaving the source of familiarity unspecified or ambiguous. Based on these findings, we propose that remembering faces is a constructive process that requires dynamic interactions between temporal lobe memory systems that operate in an automatic or bottom-up fashion and frontal executive systems that provide strategic top-down control of recollection. Executive memory control functions implemented by prefrontal cortex play a critical role in suppressing false facial recognition and related source memory misattributions.

scholarly journals The effect of disagreement on children’s source memory performance

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0249958
Author(s):  
Johannes B. Mahr ◽  
Olivier Mascaro ◽  
Hugo Mercier ◽  
Gergely Csibra
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
The Face ◽  
Communicative Context

Source representations play a role both in the formation of individual beliefs as well as in the social transmission of such beliefs. Both of these functions suggest that source information should be particularly useful in the context of interpersonal disagreement. Three experiments with an identical design (one original study and two replications) with 3- to 4-year-old-children (N = 100) assessed whether children’s source memory performance would improve in the face of disagreement and whether such an effect interacts with different types of sources (first- vs. second-hand). In a 2 x 2 repeated-measures design, children found out about the contents of a container either by looking inside or being told (IV1). Then they were questioned about the contents of the container by an interlocutor puppet who either agreed or disagreed with their answer (IV2). We measured children’s source memory performance in response to a free recall question (DV1) followed by a forced-choice question (DV2). Four-year-olds (but not three-year-olds) performed better in response to the free recall source memory question (but not the forced-choice question) when their interlocutor had disagreed with them compared to when it had agreed with them. Children were also better at recalling ‘having been told’ than ‘having seen’. These results demonstrate that by four years of age, source memory capacities are sensitive to the communicative context of assertions and serve social functions.

scholarly journals Distinguishing the Impact of Age on Semantic and Nonsemantic Associations in Episodic Memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Jarjat ◽  
Geoff Ward ◽  
Pascal Hot ◽  
Sophie Portrat ◽  
Vanessa M Loaiza
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Source Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Unrelated Pair ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Semantic Associations ◽  
Bayesian Implementation ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Objectives Refreshing, or the act of briefly foregrounding recently presented but now perceptually absent representations, has been identified as a possible source of age differences in working memory and episodic memory. We investigated whether the refreshing deficit contributes to the well-known age-related deficit for retrieving nonsemantic associations, but has no impact on existing semantic associations. Method Younger and older adults judged the relatedness of stimulus word pairs (e.g., pink–blue or pink–cop) after repeating or refreshing one of the words. During a later source recognition memory test, participants determined whether each item recognized as old was presented on the left or right (nonsemantic source memory) and presented in a related or unrelated pair (semantic source memory). The data were analyzed using a hierarchical Bayesian implementation of a multinomial model of multidimensional source memory. Results Neither age group exhibited a refreshing benefit to nonsemantic or semantic source memory parameters. There was a large age difference in nonsemantic source memory, but no age difference in semantic source memory. Discussion The study suggests that the nature of the association is most important to episodic memory performance in older age, irrespective of refreshing, such that source memory is unimpaired for semantically meaningful information.

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