Narvaez Darcia, Radvansky Gabriel A, Lynchard Nicholas A, Copeland David E
Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46656, USA.
Exp Aging Res. 2011 Jul;37(4):398-434. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2011.590756.
Whereas older adults typically show declines in various cognitive processes, they also typically demonstrate greater interest in social relationships. Part of this increased focus on interpersonal relations may extend to morality, which by its very nature is concerned with social contracts, obligations, and the give-and-take among people. The authors tested whether in comparison to younger adults, older adults show increased activation and memory for morally charged information relative to nonmoral information. Three experiments examined older and younger adult comprehension and memory of moral content in stories. Participants read stories and were tested for surface form, textbase, and situation model recognition memory. In contrast to past studies that have not focused on moral content, in this study older adults had textbase memory for moral information equal to that of young adults, suggesting an enhanced attention to morally charged details. To examine online moral inference making, Experiment 2 used lexical decision probes. There was greater facilitation of moral inferences for older adults relative to younger adults, suggesting greater focus of processing on moral content. Experiment 3 explored methodological issues to resolve some discrepancies between the experiments, and replicated the basic findings. In general, older adults had enhanced memory for morally charged story events and, relative to younger adults, were more likely to draw moral inferences during comprehension.
虽然老年人通常在各种认知过程中表现出衰退，但他们通常也对社会关系表现出更大的兴趣。这种对人际关系关注度增加的部分原因可能延伸到道德领域，道德本质上涉及社会契约、义务以及人与人之间的相互往来。作者测试了与年轻人相比，老年人是否相对于非道德信息，对带有道德意味的信息表现出更强的激活和记忆。三项实验考察了老年人和年轻人对故事中道德内容的理解和记忆。参与者阅读故事，并接受关于表层形式、文本库和情境模型识别记忆的测试。与以往未关注道德内容的研究不同，在本研究中，老年人对道德信息的文本库记忆与年轻人相当，这表明他们对带有道德意味的细节有更强的关注。为了考察在线道德推理，实验2使用了词汇判断探测。相对于年轻人，老年人在道德推理方面有更大的促进作用，这表明他们在处理过程中对道德内容有更集中的关注。实验3探讨了方法学问题，以解决实验之间的一些差异，并重复了基本发现。总体而言，老年人对带有道德意味的故事事件有更强的记忆，并且相对于年轻人，他们在理解过程中更有可能进行道德推理。
