Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry,CV4 7AL, UK.
Psychol Aging. 2011 Sep;26(3):689-94. doi: 10.1037/a0022205.
Words and nonwords were used as stimuli to assess item and associative recognition memory performance in young and older adults. Participants were presented with pairs of items and then tested on both item memory (old/new items) and associative memory (intact/recombined pairs). For words, older participants performed worse than young participants on item and associative tests but to a greater extent on the latter. In contrast, for nonwords, older participants performed equally worse than young participants on item and associative tests. This is the first study to demonstrate that a manipulation of stimulus novelty can alter age-related associative deficits.
使用单词和非单词作为刺激物来评估年轻人和老年人的项目和联想记忆表现。参与者被呈现一对项目，然后对项目记忆（旧/新项目）和联想记忆（完整/重组对）进行测试。对于单词，与年轻人相比，老年人在项目和联想测试中表现更差，但在后者中表现更差。相比之下，对于非单词，老年人在项目和联想测试中与年轻人的表现同样差。这是第一项表明刺激新颖性的操纵可以改变与年龄相关的联想缺陷的研究。
