Wong Jessica T, Gallo David A
a Department of Psychology , University of Chicago , Chicago , IL , USA.
Memory. 2016;24(5):650-8. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2015.1036885. Epub 2015 Jul 28.
Exposing older adults to ageing stereotypes can reduce their memory for studied information--a phenomenon attributed to stereotype threat--but little is known about stereotype effects on false memory. Here, we assessed ageing stereotype effects on the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory illusion. Older adults studied lists of semantically associated words, and then read a passage about age-related memory decline (threat condition) or an age-neutral passage (control condition). They then took a surprise memory test with a warning to avoid false recognition of non-studied associates. Relative to the control condition, activating stereotype threat reduced the recognition of both studied and non-studied words, implicating a conservative criterion shift for associated test words. These results indicate that stereotype threat can reduce false memory, and they help to clarify mixed results from prior ageing research. Consistent with the regulatory focus hypothesis, threat motivates older adults to respond more conservatively when error-prevention is emphasised at retrieval.
让老年人接触衰老刻板印象会降低他们对所学信息的记忆——这一现象被归因于刻板印象威胁——但对于刻板印象对错误记忆的影响却知之甚少。在此，我们评估了衰老刻板印象对迪斯-罗迪格-麦克德莫特错误记忆错觉的影响。老年人学习语义相关的单词列表，然后阅读一篇关于与年龄相关的记忆衰退的文章（威胁条件）或一篇与年龄无关的文章（对照条件）。随后，他们进行了一次突击记忆测试，并收到避免错误识别未学过的关联词的警告。相对于对照条件，激活刻板印象威胁降低了对所学和未学单词的识别，这意味着对相关测试单词采用了更保守的标准。这些结果表明，刻板印象威胁可以减少错误记忆，并且有助于澄清先前衰老研究中的混合结果。与调节焦点假设一致，当在检索时强调预防错误时，威胁会促使老年人做出更保守的反应。
