Ask how they did it: untangling the relationships between task-specific strategy use, everyday strategy use, and associative memory

ABSTRACT

Objective

Past research has shown that self-reported everyday strategy use and task-specific strategy use are related to associative memory performance in aging. Understudied is the relationship between these types of strategy use, whether they predict associative memory performance, and how this may differ across genders.

Method

A sample of older adults (N = 566, 53% female, ages 60–80) completed this online study. Study measures included 1. Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ) Strategy Use subscale, a self-report measure of everyday strategy use, 2. Face-Name Task (FNT), a measure of associative memory, and 3. self-initiated number and types of strategies used on the FNT. Analyses examined the interrelationships among all study measures and their relative contributions to FNT performance while accounting for intraindividual factors.

Results

Participants who reported using more strategies on the FNT performed better than those who used fewer or no strategies; those who reported using at least three strategies and relating FNT to past experience performed best. Women outperformed men on the FNT but did not differ in task-specific strategy use. Participants who reported using no strategies on the FNT had lower MMQ Strategy Use scores. A multiple regression analysis indicated that female gender and using at least two task strategies were significant predictors of greater FNT performance.

Conclusions

The results indicate that task-specific strategy use relates more to associative memory performance than to everyday strategy use, but neither accounts for the female advantage in FNT performance. Findings encourage querying task-specific strategy use to contextualize age-related associative memory decline.

KEYWORDS:

• Episodic memory
• metamemory
• gender differences
• self-report
• internal memory strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [grant number RGPIN-2021-40335] and York Research Chair to R.S.R., Canadian Institutes of Health Research [grant number MOP49566] to M.M., and Rotman Research Institute Soupcoff Family Research Grant and the Canadian Psychological Association Neuropsychology Section Student Grant to S.P. S.P. acknowledges support from an Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship, Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) Program graduate award, and Ontario Graduate Scholarship. C.T. was supported by a York University Centre for Vision Research Summer Research Fellowship. Thank you to Maria Arrieta and Shana Wiseberg for their technical assistance in setting up the online study.