Faculty of Science and Technology, Psychology Department, Middlesex University, London, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Jan;76(1):1-14. doi: 10.1177/17470218221090128. Epub 2022 Apr 3.
Explicit (declarative) memory declines with age, but age effects on implicit (nondeclarative) memory are debated. Some studies have reported null changes in implicit memory (e.g., priming in word-fragment completion, perceptual identification, category exemplar generation) with age, while others have uncovered declines. One factor that may account for these discrepancies is processing. Evidence suggests that conceptual and perceptual processes are not equally affected by ageing, yet processing requirements have varied greatly between studies. Processing may moderate age effects on priming, but no study has systematically examined this issue. This registered report presents an experiment to manipulate processing (conceptual / perceptual) during incidental encoding of words, prior to measures of perceptual (perceptual identification) and conceptual (category verification) priming. The perceptual and conceptual priming tasks were matched on all characteristics except processing, making them highly comparable. The four orthogonal conditions (perceptual encoding, perceptual test [PP]; conceptual encoding, perceptual test [CP]; perceptual encoding, conceptual test [PC]; conceptual encoding, conceptual test [CC]) were designed to clarify situations in which age effects on implicit memory emerge, which holds important practical and theoretical implications. Significant effects of Age, Test, and an Age × Processing interaction emerged. Priming was greater in young than older adults and on the perceptual than the conceptual test, but in contrast to the predictions, the age difference was only significant when prior encoding was perceptual (i.e., in the PP and CP conditions).
外显（陈述性）记忆随年龄增长而衰退，但年龄对内隐（非陈述性）记忆的影响仍存在争议。一些研究报告称内隐记忆（例如，单词补全、知觉识别、类别范例生成中的启动）在年龄上没有变化，而另一些研究则发现了衰退。一个可能导致这些差异的因素是加工。有证据表明，概念和知觉加工受老化的影响并不相同，但研究之间的加工要求差异很大。加工可能调节启动的年龄效应，但尚无研究系统地检验过这个问题。本预注册报告介绍了一项实验，该实验在进行单词的偶然编码期间操纵加工（概念/知觉），然后进行知觉（知觉识别）和概念（类别验证）启动的测量。知觉和概念启动任务在除加工之外的所有特征上都是匹配的，因此具有高度可比性。四个正交条件（知觉编码、知觉测试[PP]；概念编码、知觉测试[CP]；知觉编码、概念测试[PC]；概念编码、概念测试[CC]）旨在阐明内隐记忆的年龄效应出现的情况，这具有重要的实际和理论意义。年龄、测试和年龄×加工交互作用的显著影响。与老年人相比，年轻人的启动效应更大，知觉测试的启动效应大于概念测试，但与预测相反，只有在前摄编码是知觉时（即在 PP 和 CP 条件下），年龄差异才具有统计学意义。
