Kansas State University, 1114 Midcampus Drive, Manhattan, KS, 66502, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 31;13(1):18679. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-45577-3.
Although episodic memory declines with age, older adults are often able to make use of relevant knowledge to support episodic memory. More specifically, prior knowledge may support the perception of meaningful events through the process of event segmentation. We sought to test whether increasing older adults' knowledge for novel activities (i.e., Tai chi, making gyozas) would improve segmentation and memory. We conducted an online, pre-registered intervention in which eighty older adults were recruited based on being novices in each of the targeted activities. Participants completed segmentation and memory tests before and after being randomly assigned to one of two interactive virtual workshops (learning how to practice Tai chi or make gyozas). Each workshop consisted of two one-hour sessions during which an expert provided information about the activity and demonstrated it in a step-by-step fashion. We found that the intervention led to increased learning and recognition memory for the trained activity; however, there were no significant improvements in segmentation behavior, free recall, or memory of sequential information. These findings indicate that either more knowledge training is necessary to affect segmentation, or that segmentation is guided by perceptual features in the environment rather than one's conceptual understanding of the activity.
尽管情景记忆会随着年龄的增长而衰退，但老年人通常能够利用相关知识来支持情景记忆。更具体地说，先前的知识可以通过事件分割的过程来支持对有意义事件的感知。我们试图测试增加老年人对新活动（即太极拳、包饺子）的了解是否会改善分割和记忆。我们进行了一项在线的、预先注册的干预研究，根据每个目标活动的新手，招募了 80 名老年人参与。参与者在被随机分配到两个交互式虚拟工作坊之一（学习如何练习太极拳或包饺子）之前和之后完成了分割和记忆测试。每个工作坊包括两个小时的课程，在此期间，一位专家提供有关活动的信息，并以逐步的方式进行演示。我们发现，干预措施导致对训练活动的学习和识别记忆增加；然而，在分割行为、自由回忆或顺序信息记忆方面没有显著改善。这些发现表明，要么需要更多的知识培训才能影响分割，要么分割是由环境中的感知特征而不是对活动的概念理解来指导的。
