Schlagman Simone, Kliegel Matthias, Schulz Jörg, Kvavilashvili Lia
School of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom.
Psychol Aging. 2009 Jun;24(2):397-411. doi: 10.1037/a0015785.
Research on aging and autobiographical memory has focused almost exclusively on voluntary autobiographical memory. However, in everyday life, autobiographical memories often come to mind spontaneously without deliberate attempt to retrieve anything. In the present study, diary and word-cue methods were used to compare the involuntary and voluntary memories of 44 young and 38 older adults. The results showed that older adults reported fewer involuntary and voluntary memories than did younger adults. Additionally, the life span distribution of involuntary and voluntary memories did not differ in young adults (a clear recency effect) or in older adults (a recency effect and a reminiscence bump). Despite these similarities between involuntary and voluntary memories, there were also important differences in terms of the effects of age on some memory characteristics. Thus, older adults' voluntary memories were less specific and were recalled more slowly than those of young adults, but there were no reliable age differences in the specificity of involuntary memories. Moreover, older adults rated their involuntary memories as more positive than did young adults, but this positivity effect was not found for voluntary memories. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on autobiographical memory and cognitive aging are discussed.
关于衰老与自传体记忆的研究几乎完全集中在自主性自传体记忆上。然而，在日常生活中，自传体记忆常常会自发地浮现在脑海中，而无需刻意去回忆任何事情。在本研究中，采用日记法和单词线索法对44名年轻人和38名老年人的非自主性记忆和自主性记忆进行了比较。结果显示，老年人报告的非自主性记忆和自主性记忆都比年轻人少。此外，年轻人（明显的近因效应）和老年人（近因效应和记忆隆起）的非自主性记忆和自主性记忆的寿命分布并无差异。尽管非自主性记忆和自主性记忆之间存在这些相似之处，但在年龄对某些记忆特征的影响方面也存在重要差异。因此，老年人的自主性记忆不如年轻人具体，回忆速度也更慢，但非自主性记忆的具体性在年龄上没有可靠的差异。此外，老年人对自己非自主性记忆的评价比年轻人更积极，但在自主性记忆中未发现这种积极效应。本文讨论了这些发现对自传体记忆研究和认知衰老研究的理论意义。
