The immediate retrieval of verbal sequences in late-life span: a developmental approach

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to explore the mechanisms underpinning forward and backward immediate serial recall in young (i.e., 20–30 years), old (i.e., 65–74 years), and very old (i.e., 75–84 years) adults. Participants had to retrieve verbal lists from forward and backward perspectives where position-item and item-item pairings were reiterated from the start or the end of the sequence across four consecutive lists. The results showed that the age and type of the repeated cues across the lists influenced memory performance. That is, old participants outperformed the very old group in both recall modalities; furthermore, the repetition of positional and inter-item cues from the list start facilitates memory performance in forward and backward conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that the list start is the most significant marker for encoding serial information and support the idea of a common mechanism underpinning the immediate recall of serial information in forward and backward order.

Keywords:

• Aging
• connectionist models
• elderly
• Hebb effect
• immediate serial recall

Author notes

Dr. Maria Chiara Fastame is assistant professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Cagliari in Italy. She is interested in the study of memory functions in life span, with a modality-specific focus on their impact in educational context and in late adulthood. In this regard, she is interested in studying the psychological factors contributing to successful aging. Eliano Pessa is full professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Pavia in Italy. His research interests include the development of neural networks simulating human behaviors, with a particular emphasis on the experimental and theoretical study of memory systems. Maria Pietronilla Penna is full professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cagliari. She is mainly involved in the study of the cognitive processes in life span by means of behavioral studies and the development of artificial neural networks. She is also focused on the study of psychological well-being and mnestic efficiency of the elderly. Dr. Paul Kenneth Hitchcott is senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University in the United Kingdom. His research interests concern the mechanisms underpinning learning and memory in rodents and human beings. He is also interested in exploring the relationship between memory efficiency and well-being in successful aging.