Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Psychol Aging. 2014 Mar;29(1):140-9. doi: 10.1037/a0035347.
Memory performance increases during childhood and adolescence, and decreases in old age. Among younger adults, better ability to bind items to the context in which they were experienced is associated with higher working memory performance (Oberauer, 2005). Here, we examined the extent to which age differences in binding contribute to life span age differences in short-term memory (STM). Younger children (N = 85; 10 to 12 years), teenagers (N = 41; 13 to 15 years), younger adults (N = 84; 20 to 25 years), and older adults (N = 86; 70 to 75 years) worked on global and local short-term recognition tasks that are assumed to measure item and item-context memory, respectively. Structural equation models showed that item-context bindings are functioning less well in children and older adults compared with younger adults and teenagers. This result suggests protracted development of the ability to form and recollect detailed short-term memories, and decline of this ability in aging. Across all age groups, better item-context binding was associated with higher working memory performance, indicating that developmental differences in binding mechanisms are closely related to working memory development in childhood and old age.
记忆能力在儿童和青少年时期会增强，而在老年时期则会下降。在年轻成年人中，更好地将项目与体验它们的背景联系起来的能力与更高的工作记忆表现相关（Oberauer，2005）。在这里，我们研究了在多大程度上，绑定能力的年龄差异导致了短期记忆（STM）的寿命期年龄差异。年幼的儿童（N=85；10 至 12 岁）、青少年（N=41；13 至 15 岁）、年轻成年人（N=84；20 至 25 岁）和老年人（N=86；70 至 75 岁）分别参加了全局和局部短期识别任务，这些任务分别被认为可以衡量项目和项目背景记忆。结构方程模型表明，与年轻成年人和青少年相比，儿童和老年人的项目背景绑定能力较差。这一结果表明，形成和回忆详细短期记忆的能力的发展较为缓慢，并且这种能力在衰老过程中会下降。在所有年龄段中，更好的项目背景绑定与更高的工作记忆表现相关，这表明绑定机制的发展差异与儿童和老年时期的工作记忆发展密切相关。
