Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Psychol Aging. 2018 Feb;33(1):30-45. doi: 10.1037/pag0000209.
Older adults typically experience memory impairments for verbal and visuospatial episodic information, which are most pronounced for associative information. Although some age-related verbal memory deficits may be reduced by selectively focusing on high-value item information, the binding of items to locations in visuospatial memory involves different processes that are impaired in older adults. In the current study, we examined whether age-related impairment in visuospatial binding could be alleviated by strategic focus on important information and whether varying study time and presentation formats would affect such selectivity. We also used novel spatial resolutions analysis to examine participants' gist-based visuospatial memory with respect to information importance. Younger and older adults were presented with items worth different point values in a visuospatial display, either sequentially (Experiment 1) or simultaneously (Experiment 2). When items were presented sequentially, participants became more selective with task experience, but when items were presented simultaneously, selectivity was maintained throughout the task. These patterns were also observed when encoding time was reduced for younger adults. Although older adults successfully engaged in value-based memory strategies, age-related visuospatial memory deficits were still present, even for high-value information, consistent with the associative deficit hypothesis. However, under some conditions, older adults showed reduced spatial relocation errors for high-value item-location associations. The results suggest that strategic control can be used when binding information in visuospatial memory, and that both younger and older adults can benefit by focusing on high-value items and their locations, despite associative memory deficits present in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record
老年人通常会经历言语和视空间情节记忆的损伤，其中对联想信息的损伤最为明显。虽然通过选择性地关注高价值项目信息，可以减轻一些与年龄相关的言语记忆缺陷，但在视空间记忆中项目与位置的绑定涉及不同的过程，这些过程在老年人中受到损害。在目前的研究中，我们研究了是否可以通过有策略地关注重要信息来减轻与年龄相关的视空间绑定损伤，以及不同的学习时间和呈现格式是否会影响这种选择性。我们还使用新的空间分辨率分析来研究参与者在重要性方面的基于要点的视空间记忆。年轻和老年参与者在视空间显示中看到具有不同分值的项目，这些项目要么按顺序（实验 1）要么同时（实验 2）呈现。当项目按顺序呈现时，参与者随着任务经验的增加而变得更加具有选择性，但当项目同时呈现时，选择性在整个任务中得以维持。当年轻参与者的编码时间减少时，也观察到了这些模式。尽管老年人成功地采用了基于价值的记忆策略，但与年龄相关的视空间记忆缺陷仍然存在，即使是对于高价值信息，这与联想缺陷假设一致。然而，在某些条件下，老年人对于高价值项目-位置关联的空间重新定位错误减少。结果表明，在视空间记忆中绑定信息时可以使用策略控制，并且尽管老年人存在联想记忆缺陷，但年轻和老年人都可以通过关注高价值项目及其位置而受益。
