Age differences in episodic memory for spatial and temporal contexts
Researchers using a source-memory paradigm suggest that age changes in episodic memory result from a failure of older adults to connect spatio-temporal information to the target information that participants attempt to learn. However, spatial and temporal context information are confounded in this p...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-1996
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Researchers using a source-memory paradigm suggest that age changes in episodic memory result from a failure of older adults to connect spatio-temporal information to the target information that participants attempt to learn. However, spatial and temporal context information are confounded in this paradigm. The present research separates spatial and temporal context information to see how these are retained and utilized. The local/global nature of contextual information is also investigated. Young and elderly participants attended two word-learning sessions conducted in separate, distinct rooms on each of two days. During the sessions, a computer presented some words on each side of the monitor. Each session was immediately followed by a free recall test of the words from that session. Following the last session on the second day, a recognition test for the words presented on both days was administered. In addition, the participant's recall of (a) the room, (b) the day, (c) the monitor position, and (d) the half of the list in which a word had been presented, was tested following recognized words. These questions corresponded to global spatial and temporal, and local spatial and temporal contexts associated with the word. As predicted, young adults recognized more words and recalled more contextual information than the elderly adults; however, the obtained age by type of contextual information interaction was not in the predicted direction. Larger age differences were obtained for temporal than for spatial information. Further, while global information was recalled better than local information, larger age differences were obtained for global than for local context information. The research points to the importance of age differences in recalling global, temporal information in explaining episodic memory changes. |
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| ISBN: | 9781392411025 1392411025 |