Almond Nicholas M, Morrison Catriona M
a Institute of Psychological Sciences , University of Leeds , Leeds , UK.
Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2014;21(5):606-32. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2013.849653. Epub 2013 Oct 23.
There is clear evidence of a deficit in episodic memory for older adults compared to younger adults. Using an intertrial technique previous research has investigated whether this deficit can be attributed to a decline in encoding or consolidation. On standard memory tests, these two aspects of memory function can be measured by examining the items forgotten or acquired across multiple learning trials. The present study assessed whether age deficits in episodic memory were affected by stimulus characteristics, specifically age of acquisition (AoA). A standard intertrial design was implemented whereby participants studied word lists over several study-test trials. The stimulus characteristics of AoA were manipulated using a pure-list technique. Our findings showed that older adults demonstrate an overall recall deficit which appeared to be a consequence of both an encoding deficit and consolidation weakness. Earlier-acquired words were recalled significantly better than later-acquired words and this was apparently due to both enhanced encoding and consolidation of earlier- over later-acquired words. The key finding is that older adults show a recall advantage for earlier- compared to later-acquired words over the entire experiment to a greater degree than younger adults.
与年轻人相比，有明确证据表明老年人的情景记忆存在缺陷。以往的研究采用一种试验间技术，探究了这种缺陷是否可归因于编码或巩固过程的衰退。在标准记忆测试中，记忆功能的这两个方面可通过检查在多次学习试验中遗忘或习得的项目来衡量。本研究评估了情景记忆中的年龄缺陷是否受刺激特征的影响，特别是习得年龄（AoA）。采用了一种标准的试验间设计，参与者在多个学习 - 测试试验中学习单词列表。使用纯列表技术操纵习得年龄的刺激特征。我们的研究结果表明，老年人表现出总体回忆缺陷，这似乎是编码缺陷和巩固薄弱共同作用的结果。较早习得的单词比后来习得的单词回忆得明显更好，这显然是由于较早习得的单词在编码和巩固方面都比后来习得的单词更强。关键发现是，在整个实验中，与年轻人相比，老年人在较早习得的单词与较晚习得的单词上表现出更大程度的回忆优势。
