Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA.
Psychol Aging. 2010 Dec;25(4):940-8. doi: 10.1037/a0020595.
Advanced age is associated with decrements in episodic memory, which are more pronounced in memory for associations than for individual items. The associative deficit hypothesis (ADH) states that age differences in recognition memory reflect difficulty in binding components of a memory episode and retrieving bound units. To date, ADH has received support only in studies of extreme age groups, and the influence of sex, education, and health on age-related associative deficit is unknown. We address those issues using a verbal paired-associate yes-no recognition paradigm on a lifespan sample of 278 healthy, well-educated adults. In accord with the ADH, greater age was associated with lower hit and greater false alarm rates and more liberal response bias on associative recognition tests. Women outperformed men on recognition of items and associations, but among normotensive participants, women outperformed men only on memory for associations and not on item recognition. Thus, although supporting ADH in a large lifespan sample of healthy adults, the findings indicate that the effect may be partially driven by an age-related increase in liberal bias in recognition of associations. Sex differences and health factors may modify the associative deficit regardless of age.
年龄增长与情景记忆能力下降有关，而在记忆联想方面的下降比在记忆单个项目方面更为明显。联想缺失假说（ADH）认为，在再认记忆中年龄差异反映了将记忆事件的组成部分进行绑定以及检索绑定单元的困难。迄今为止，ADH 仅在对极端年龄组的研究中得到了支持，而性别、教育和健康对与年龄相关的联想缺失的影响尚不清楚。我们在一个包含 278 名健康、受过良好教育的成年人的终身样本中使用言语对联想的 yes-no 识别范式来解决这些问题。与 ADH 一致，年龄越大，在联想识别测试中，击中率越低，虚报率越高，反应偏向越宽松。女性在对项目和联想的识别方面优于男性，但在血压正常的参与者中，女性仅在联想记忆方面优于男性，而不是在项目识别方面。因此，尽管在一个包含大量健康成年人的终身样本中支持 ADH，但研究结果表明，这种影响可能部分是由于与年龄相关的在识别联想时宽松偏向的增加所致。性别差异和健康因素可能会改变联想缺失，而与年龄无关。
