Christie Chung

Effects of repetition and response deadline on associative recognition in young and older adults

The present study examined the joint effects of repetition and response deadline on associative recognition in older adults. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs, half presented once (weak pairs) and half presented four times (strong pairs). Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and unstudied pairs (new lures), and participants were asked to respond “old” only to intact pairs. In Experiment 1, participants were tested with both short and long deadlines. In Experiment 2, the tests were unpaced. In both experiments, repetition increased hit rates for young and older adults. Young adults tested with a long deadline showed reduced (Experiment 1) or invariant (Experiment 2) false alarms to rearranged lures when word pairs were studied more often. Young adults tested with a short deadline and older adults tested under all conditions had increased false alarm rates for strong rearranged pairs. Implications of these results for theories of associative recognition and cognitive aging are explored.

Dual-process models of associative recognition in young and older adults : Evidence from receiver operating characteristics

In 3 experiments, young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs and were given confidence-rated item and associative recognition tests. Several different models of recognition were fit to the confidence-rating data using techniques described by S. Macho (2002, 2004). Concordant with previous findings, item recognition data were best fit by an unequal-variance signal detection theory model for both young and older adults. For both age groups, associative recognition performance was best explained by models incorporating both recollection and familiarity components. Examination of parameter estimates supported the conclusion that recollection is reduced in old age, but inferences about age differences in familiarity were highly model dependent. Implications for dual-process models of memory in old age are discussed.

Effects of Age and Study Repetition on Plurality Discrimination

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown that false recognition decreases with study repetition for young but not for older adults, suggesting a deficit in recollection but not familiarity in old age. It is unclear, however, precisely how false recognition changes over a series of presentation frequencies for young and older adults. The present study examined this issue using a plurality discrimination task in which young, young–old, and old–old adults studied singular and plural nouns 1, 2, 4, and 8 times. False alarms to plurality-reversed lures increased with repetition for all age groups, and then declined at higher repetitions for young and young–old but not for old–old adults. Recollection deficit thus occurred at a more advanced age than researchers had previously envisioned. Further, reducing recollection demand eliminated age-related differences in plurality discrimination.

Preserved criterion flexibility in item recognition in older adults.

Young and older adults studied a list of words and then took 2 successive tests of item recognition, an easy test consisting of studied words and unrelated lures and a hard test pitting studied words against semantically related lures. When the easy test was first, participants in both age groups adopted a more stringent criterion on the harder test. When the hard test was first, no criterion shift was seen. Older adults can assess the consequences for accuracy of maintaining a lenient criterion when discrimination becomes more difficult and can take appropriate action to control errors under these conditions.

The Effect of Christian Belief in Eternal Life on Age-Related Social Partner Choice

As adults enter old age, they tend to decrease the size of their social circle; however, despite this decrease, older adults express the same or increased satisfaction in the quality of current relationships and the size of their social circle [10, 16]. In addition, population based studies have shown lower rates of depression and anxiety in older adults compared to younger adults [2, 8]. The disengagement theory explains the detachment of older adults from their social sphere as preparation for the end of life. They disengage from society and quietly exit. An alternative theory calls for more involvement from government social programs, stating that older adults have smaller social circles because they are less able to interact with others and would need external aid to assist with expanding their circle if desired [10, 16]. Neither of these theories addresses the experimental finding that many older adults are in fact more satisfied with their social circumstances than their younger counterparts and show fewer negative affective symptoms.