Age-Related Changes in the use of Study Context to Increase Recollection

ABSTRACT

We examined how context presented at study affects recollection of words in younger and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants studied words presented with a picture of a face (context-rich condition) or a rectangle (context-weak condition), and subsequently made ‘Remember’, ‘Know’, or ‘New’ judgments to words presented alone. Younger, but not older, adults showed higher Remember accuracy following rich- than weak-context trials. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the type of processing engaged during the encoding of context–word pairs. Younger and older adults studied words presented with a picture of a face under a surface feature (gender) or binding feature (match) instruction condition. Both age groups showed higher Remember accuracy in the binding than surface instruction condition. Results suggest that providing rich contextual detail at encoding boosts later item recollection in younger adults. Older adults, however, do not spontaneously engage in the processes required to boost recollection, though instructional manipulation during encoding lessens this deficit.

Keywords:

• Memory
• Aging
• Context
• Recollection
• Familiarity

This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) awarded to MF, a post-graduate scholarship from NSERC to ES.

Notes

¹Performing separate analyses of Remember and Know responses to assess recollection and familiarity makes the assumption that Remember and Know responses are mutually exclusive. Whereas some state that this is a valid assumption (see Gardiner et al., 1996), others have argued that recollection and familiarity are better described as independent, such that items may be either recollected, or known, though a subset may be both recollected and known (Yonelinas & Jacoby, 1995). This independence assumption requires that one divide the number of Know responses by the opportunities available to make a Know response (i.e., 1 – Recollection) to gain an accurate measure of familiarity (See Yonelinas & Jacoby, 1995 for further details). We examined familiarity based on the assumption of independence (see Tables 1 and 2), and found that the results did not differ from our analysis of Know responses.