Department of Psychology, University of Toronto.
Psychol Aging. 2013 Sep;28(3):721-8. doi: 10.1037/a0033003. Epub 2013 Aug 19.
Difficulty with memory retrieval is a salient feature of cognitive aging and may be related to a reduction in the ability to suppress items that compete for retrieval. To test this hypothesis directly, we presented a series of words for shallow coding that included pairs of orthographically similar words (e.g., ALLERGY and ANALOGY). After a delay, participants solved word fragments (e.g., A _ L _ _ GY) that resembled both words in a pair but could only be completed by one. We measured the consequence of having successfully resolved competition by having participants read a list of words including the rejected competitors as quickly as possible. Response time was compared with control conditions that did not require resolving competition. Older adults showed no evidence of suppression; instead they showed priming for the competitors, in sharp contrast to strong suppression effects previously observed in younger adults. Whereas previous studies have provided clear evidence for suppression deficits by examining the ability to produce targets in high interference situations, here we provide direct evidence for a suppression deficit by examining the accessibility of rejected competitors.
记忆检索困难是认知老化的一个显著特征，可能与抑制竞争项目检索的能力下降有关。为了直接检验这一假设，我们呈现了一系列进行浅层编码的单词，包括一对拼写相似的单词（例如 ALLERGY 和 ANALOGY）。在延迟后，参与者解决了类似于一对单词中两个单词的单词碎片（例如 A _ L _ _ GY），但只能由一个单词完成。我们通过让参与者尽快阅读包括被拒绝的竞争者的单词列表来衡量成功解决竞争的后果。将反应时间与不需要解决竞争的控制条件进行比较。老年人没有表现出抑制的迹象；相反，他们对竞争者表现出了启动效应，这与之前在年轻人中观察到的强烈抑制效应形成鲜明对比。虽然之前的研究通过检查在高干扰情况下产生目标的能力为抑制缺陷提供了明确的证据，但在这里，我们通过检查被拒绝的竞争者的可及性为抑制缺陷提供了直接证据。
