Center for Mental Health Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China.
Aging Ment Health. 2020 Jan;24(1):73-80. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2018.1523875. Epub 2018 Nov 26.
This study aimed to explore whether experimentally induced younger subjective age can lead to better memory performance among Chinese older adults. A total of 203 participants aged 60-84 years were randomly assigned to three groups. In the positive and neutral feedback groups, participants were told that their memory performance was better than and equivalent to the same-aged peers after an initial memory task, respectively, in contrast to no feedback in the control group. Participants then completed a second memory measure. The results revealed that participants in the positive feedback group felt younger and showed a significant increase in memory performance, whereas participants in the neutral feedback group felt older but also showed a significant increase in memory performance. For participants in the control group, no significant changes in memory performance were observed. It seems that experimentally induced younger subjective age can lead to better memory performance among older adults, providing a promising strategy to maintain memory functioning in old age.
本研究旨在探讨实验诱导的年轻主观年龄是否能提高中国老年人的记忆表现。共有 203 名 60-84 岁的参与者被随机分配到三个组。在积极反馈和中性反馈组中，参与者在完成初始记忆任务后分别被告知他们的记忆表现优于和等同于同龄同侪，而在对照组中则没有反馈。然后，参与者完成了第二次记忆测试。结果显示，积极反馈组的参与者感觉更年轻，记忆表现显著提高，而中性反馈组的参与者感觉更老，但记忆表现也显著提高。对于对照组的参与者，记忆表现没有显著变化。似乎实验诱导的年轻主观年龄可以提高老年人的记忆表现，为老年时保持记忆功能提供了一种有前途的策略。
