May Cynthia P, Rahhal Tamara, Berry Evan M, Leighton Elizabeth A
Department of Psychology, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA.
Psychol Aging. 2005 Dec;20(4):571-8. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.20.4.571.
In 2 experiments we assessed younger and older adults' ability to remember contextual information about an event. Each experiment examined memory for 3 different types of contextual information: (a) perceptual information (e.g., location of an item); (b) conceptual, nonemotional information (e.g., quality of an item); and (c) conceptual, emotional information (e.g., safety of an item). Consistent with a large literature on aging and source memory, younger adults outperformed older adults when the contextual information was perceptual in nature and when it was conceptual, but not emotional. Age differences in source memory were eliminated, however, when participants recalled emotional source information. These findings suggest that emotional information differentially engages older adults, possibly evoking enhanced elaborations and associations. The data are also consistent with a growing literature, suggesting that emotional processing remains stable with age (e.g., Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994, 1998; Isaacowitz, Charles, & Carstensen, 2000).
在两项实验中，我们评估了年轻人和老年人记忆关于某一事件的情境信息的能力。每项实验都考察了对三种不同类型情境信息的记忆：(a) 感知信息（例如，物品的位置）；(b) 概念性的、非情感性信息（例如，物品的质量）；以及 (c) 概念性的、情感性信息（例如，物品的安全性）。与大量关于衰老和源记忆的文献一致，当情境信息本质上是感知性的以及是概念性而非情感性的时候，年轻人的表现优于老年人。然而，当参与者回忆情感性源信息时，源记忆中的年龄差异就消除了。这些发现表明，情感信息对老年人的影响有所不同，可能会引发更强的精细化加工和联想。这些数据也与越来越多的文献一致，表明情感加工能力随着年龄增长保持稳定（例如，卡斯滕森和特克 - 查尔斯，1994年，1998年；艾萨克维茨、查尔斯和卡斯滕森，2000年）。
