Age-related schema reliance of judgments of learning in predicting source memory

ABSTRACT

Source memory refers to mental processes of encoding and making attributions to the origin of information. We investigated schematic effects on source attributions of younger and older adults for different schema-based types of items, and their schema-utilization of judgments of learning (JOLs) in estimating source memory. Participants studied statements presented by two speakers either as a doctor or a lawyer: those in the schema-after-encoding condition were informed their occupation only before retrieving, while those of schema-before-encoding were presented the schematic information prior to study. Immediately after learning every item, they made judgments of the likelihood for it to be correctly attributed to the original source later. In the test, they fulfilled a task of source attributing. The results showed a two-edged effect of schemas: schema reliance improved source memory for schema-consistent items while impaired that for schema-inconsistent items, even with schematic information presented prior to encoding. Compared with younger adults, older adults benefited more from schema-based compensatory mechanisms. Both younger and older adults could make JOLs based on before-encoding schematic information, and the schema-based JOLs were more accurate in predicting source memory than JOLs made without schema support. However, even in the schema-after-encoding condition, older adults were able to make metacognitive judgments as accurately as younger adults did, though they did have great impairments in source memory itself.

Keywords:

• Source memory
• Judgments of learning
• Schema
• Aging
• Metacognition

Acknowledgments

This research was funded in part by 09YJAXLX021 for social science study from the State Education Ministry and the 41st The Project Sponsored by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry, both to correspondence author. It was also funded in part by 11YJA190015 for social science study from the State Education Ministry to Wei-Hai Tang. We thank Prof. Aaron S. Benjamin and Dr Agnieszka E. Konopka, from the Human Memory and Cognition Laboratory at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for their share of experimental materials.