Université de Tours, Université de Poitiers, UMR CNRS 7295 Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l'Apprentissage, Tours, France.
Université de Tours, Université de Poitiers, UMR CNRS 7295 Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l'Apprentissage, Tours, France.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2022 Aug;228:103627. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103627. Epub 2022 Jun 7.
The present study investigated the impact of cognitive reserve on episodic memory and metamemory control during aging using a multidimensional index of cognitive reserve and a measure of metamemory control abilities. We tested the hypotheses that cognitive reserve may play a protective role against age-related differences in episodic memory and metamemory control and that metamemory control may mediate the effect of cognitive reserve on episodic memory during aging. Young and older adults carried out a readiness-recall task in which task difficulty was manipulated through a variation of the nature of the cue-target pair link (weak vs. strong semantic associates). Episodic memory was assessed through recall performance, and metamemory by a task difficulty index reflecting the ability to adjust study time to task difficulty. Results confirmed that older adults recall fewer words, indicating an age-related deficit in episodic memory, and that older adults adjust less to task difficulty, suggesting impaired metamemory control. Findings also showed that metamemory control moderates the age-related decline in episodic memory and that cognitive reserve plays a protective role against age-related deficits in episodic memory and metamemory control. In addition, metamemory abilities mediated the beneficial effect of cognitive reserve on episodic memory performance during aging. Hence, this study sheds new light on the mechanisms underlying the impact of cognitive reserve on cognitive aging, highlighting the role of metacognitive processes.
本研究使用认知储备的多维指数和元记忆控制能力的测量方法，考察了认知储备对衰老过程中情景记忆和元记忆控制的影响。我们假设认知储备可能对情景记忆和元记忆控制的年龄相关差异起到保护作用，并且元记忆控制可能在衰老过程中调节认知储备对情景记忆的影响。年轻和老年被试者进行了一项准备-回忆任务，通过改变提示-目标对链接的性质（弱语义联想与强语义联想）来操纵任务难度。通过回忆表现评估情景记忆，通过反映调整学习时间以适应任务难度的能力的任务难度指数评估元记忆。结果证实，老年被试者回忆的单词较少，表明情景记忆存在与年龄相关的缺陷，并且老年被试者调整的幅度较小，表明元记忆控制受损。研究结果还表明，元记忆控制调节了情景记忆随年龄的衰退，并且认知储备对情景记忆和元记忆控制的年龄相关缺陷起到了保护作用。此外，元记忆能力中介了认知储备对衰老过程中情景记忆表现的有益影响。因此，本研究为认知储备对认知老化的影响机制提供了新的见解，强调了元认知过程的作用。
