Chapter 3 Flashcards
• Short-term memory (STM)
memory from few minutes/seconds ago
testing with: to-be-remembered-items (TBR) digit span, word span
• Baddeley:
central executive, slave systems
• Slave systems: phonological loop,
Ageing and short term memory
- Age gap shown through backward span procedure
- Corsi Block Test same result as forward span
- Problems with frontal lobe?
- Inhibitory deficit hypothesis
- no age deficit in Retrieval-induced forgetting in episodic memory maybe just wrong study method
- how much is inhibition and how much general ageing?
- Decline in STM because of central executive, not storage per se
- Ranschburg effect=deterioration in memory performance when items are repeated in a list of TBR items greater in older adults
- Chunking older ppl less likely to do it
- Different strategy use? –> but still big age difference when controlled for
- Method of loci training for eldersbut only particular task, not all memory, still more efficient for younger than older ppl
Ageing and long-term memory
• Effect of age on LTM is very big
Remote memory
- Remote memory=non-autobiographical events, e.g. that have been in the news
- Famous Names Test (FNT) for all age groups recent names better than distant onesold better than young
- ContradictsRibot’s hypothesis=memory for recent events should be wose than distant events
- BUT: might still not be remote memory, recollected from general memory
- Remote memory might just reflect media coverage
- Still good for testing dementia
Eyewitness testimony
- Some worsening of recall in older
- Old more confident that wrong info is real
- Link to frontal lobe decline
Text recall
- No/relatively few age differences in recall of main points of text
- Memory for detail may worsen
Semantic memory
- No age differences in semantic memory, maybe even better than young
- Across cortex, not specific brain region
- When asked to retrieve more specific semantic memory, age difference appears
Episodic memory
• Source memory: remembering the context in which something was learned
• Destination memory: remembering who has already told or been told the same information
Both impaired in elder adults
Implicit memory
• No significant/ only slight age difference
• Old less able to make use of implicit associations
questionable studies
Autobiographical memory and ageing
- Involuntary memory= producing memories they would not have produced in that moment in time more autobiographical memories voluntary memory spontaneous, through associations more likely to be cued by abstract thoughts than specific sensory input, decline of voluntary memory in elders
- Reminiscence peak (reminiscence bump): most autobiographical memory comes from period between 10-30 years old most happens in life
- Childhood amnesia : no memory about very early childhood
Prospective memory
- Remembering things to do in the future not just another form of LTM, must be remembered at right time
- Internal cues: person hopes to prompt themselves at right time time-based tasks
- External cues: knot in handkerchief, diary entry event-based tasks
- But: division is not clear cut
- often no age difference for elders or even superiority,
Metamemory and ageing
- Metaknowledge, Feeling of knowing (FOK): how confident are participants that their answer is correct
- No age difference, but elders less self esteem
- Tip of the tongue (TOT):incomplete memory, name or word cannot quite be recalled
- Older people more TOTs, but no age difference in resolving
- Older not as efficient
Summary and overwiev -how does ageing affect memory?
- Memory does decline with age, despite basic STM span, some aspects of prospective memory and metamemory
- Having positive image of ageing can offset ageing
• Compensation-Related Utilisation of Neural Circuits Hypothesis (CRUNCH):
neural representations are more distinctive in older adults when there are relatively low task demands/ less distinctive when demands are high
loss of grey matter, more neurons activated to do simple tasks, when task demand high, older neurons lack power to cope
