Memory for Actions of an Event: Older and Younger Adults Compared

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have shown increased false memory effects in older compared to younger adults. To investigate this phenomenon in event memory, in the present study, the authors presented younger and older adults with a robbery. A distinction was made between verbal and visual actions of the event, and recognition and subjective experience of retrieval (remember/know/guess judgments) were analyzed. Although there were no differences in hits, older adults accepted more false information as true and, consequently, showed less accurate recognition than younger adults. Moreover, older adults were more likely than younger adults to accompany these errors with remember judgments. Young adults accepted fewer false verbal actions than visual ones and awarded fewer remember judgments to their false alarms for verbal than for visual actions. Older adults, however, did not show this effect of type of information. These results suggest that aging is a relevant factor in memory for real-life eyewitness situations.

Keywords:

• event memory
• false memory
• older adults
• remember/know/guess judgments
• verbal and visual actions

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by a predoctoral grant from the University of the Basque Country awarded to the first author and partially by grant BSO2000-1417 from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia (Spain) awarded to Elvira Garcia-Bajos and Malen Migueles.

Notes

^aSubtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–III.

^bSubtest of the Primary Mental Aptitude Test.