Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650, USA.
Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2012;19(1-2):13-34. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2011.622740. Epub 2011 Nov 8.
Normative age differences in memory have typically been attributed to declines in basic cognitive and cortical mechanisms. The present study examined the degree to which dominant everyday affect might also be associated with age-related memory errors using the misinformation paradigm. Younger and older adults viewed a positive and a negative event, and then were exposed to misinformation about each event. Older adults exhibited a higher likelihood than young adults of falsely identifying misinformation as having occurred in the events. Consistent with expectations, strength of the misinformation effect was positively associated with dominant mood, and controlling for mood eliminated any age effects. Also, motivation to engage in complex cognitive activity was negatively associated with susceptibility to misinformation, and susceptibility was stronger for negative than for positive events. We argue that motivational processes underlie all of the observed effects, and that such processes are useful in understanding age differences in memory performance.
规范性年龄差异在记忆中通常归因于基本认知和皮质机制的下降。本研究使用错误信息范式，考察了主要日常情绪是否也与年龄相关的记忆错误有关。年轻和年长的成年人观看了一个积极和一个消极的事件，然后暴露在关于每个事件的错误信息中。与年轻人相比，老年人更有可能错误地将错误信息识别为在事件中发生。与预期一致，错误信息效应的强度与主导情绪呈正相关，控制情绪消除了任何年龄效应。此外，参与复杂认知活动的动机与对错误信息的易感性呈负相关，且负面事件比正面事件的易感性更强。我们认为，动机过程是所有观察到的效应的基础，并且这些过程有助于理解记忆表现中的年龄差异。
