a Department of Psychology , UNC-CH , Chapel Hill , NC , USA.
Memory. 2014;22(6):722-36. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2013.820325. Epub 2013 Aug 6.
Older adults tend to retrieve autobiographical information that is overly general (i.e., not restricted to a single event, termed the overgenerality effect) relative to young adults' specific memories. A vast majority of studies that have reported overgenerality effects explicitly instruct participants to retrieve specific memories, thereby requiring participants to maintain task goals, inhibit inappropriate responses, and control their memory search. Since these processes are impaired in healthy ageing, it is important to determine whether such task instructions influence the magnitude of the overgenerality effect in older adults. In the current study participants retrieved autobiographical memories during presentation of musical clips. Task instructions were manipulated to separate age-related differences in the specificity of underlying memory representations from age-related differences in following task instructions. Whereas young adults modulated memory specificity based on task demands, older adults did not. These findings suggest that reported rates of overgenerality in older adults' memories might include age-related differences in memory representation, as well as differences in task compliance. Such findings provide a better understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in age-related changes in autobiographical memory and may also be valuable for future research examining effects of overgeneral memory on general well-being.
老年人往往会检索出过于笼统的自传体信息（即不限于单一事件，称为过度概括效应），而年轻人的记忆则比较具体。绝大多数报告过度概括效应的研究都明确要求参与者检索具体的记忆，从而要求参与者保持任务目标、抑制不当反应和控制记忆搜索。由于这些过程在健康老化中受损，因此确定这些任务指令是否会影响老年人过度概括效应的大小非常重要。在当前的研究中，参与者在播放音乐片段时检索自传体记忆。任务指令被操纵，以将记忆表示的基础特异性中的年龄相关差异与遵循任务指令中的年龄相关差异分开。尽管年轻人根据任务需求调整了记忆特异性，但老年人没有。这些发现表明，在老年人记忆中报告的过度概括率可能包括记忆表示中的年龄相关差异，以及任务遵从性的差异。这些发现有助于更好地理解自传体记忆中与年龄相关的变化所涉及的潜在认知机制，对于未来研究过度概括记忆对一般幸福感的影响也可能具有重要价值。
