Gallo Haley B, Hargis Mary B, Castel Alan D
a Department of Psychology , University of California , Los Angeles , CA , USA.
Exp Aging Res. 2019 May-Jun;45(3):252-265. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2019.1609163. Epub 2019 Apr 25.
Background/Study Context: Memory for specific, verbatim details tends to decline with age, and reliance on gist-based information increases. However, instructions that direct attention toward certain types of information can benefit memory accuracy for that information. Previous work has examined gist-based and verbatim memory for images, but little work has utilized stimuli that participants may study in their daily lives, such as a weather forecast.
The current study examined how younger and older adults recall both general, gist-based information and specific, verbatim details of a weather forecast, and whether differences in the task instructions to focus on gist-based information may affect recall. Two study-test cycles with different forecasts were used to determine whether experience with the task may affect performance.
While there was no effect of additional gist-based instructions on recall of gist-based information, participants who received the additional instructions recalled fewer verbatim details than those who did not. There were no age-related differences in recall of the gist of the forecast, but younger adults correctly recalled more verbatim details than older adults did.
Environmental support and use of gist-based processing can allow both younger and older adults to remember information that can be useful in their daily lives. The current study informs future research on prospective memory and memory for everyday information.
背景/研究背景:对特定逐字细节的记忆往往会随着年龄增长而衰退,对基于要点信息的依赖则会增加。然而,将注意力导向某些类型信息的指示能够提高该信息的记忆准确性。以往的研究考察了对图像的基于要点和逐字的记忆,但很少有研究使用参与者在日常生活中可能会学习的刺激物,比如天气预报。
本研究考察了年轻人和老年人如何回忆天气预报的一般要点信息和特定逐字细节,以及专注于要点信息的任务指示差异是否会影响回忆。使用两个包含不同预报的学习-测试周期来确定任务经验是否会影响表现。
虽然额外的基于要点的指示对基于要点信息的回忆没有影响,但接受额外指示的参与者回忆的逐字细节比未接受的参与者少。在预报要点的回忆上没有年龄相关差异,但年轻人正确回忆的逐字细节比老年人多。
环境支持和基于要点的处理方式的运用能够使年轻人和老年人都记住对他们日常生活有用的信息。本研究为未来关于前瞻记忆和日常信息记忆的研究提供了参考。