Two experiments with young and elderly adults explored age-related memory differences for performed action events varying in familiarity. Memory for similar items encoded verbally was also assessed. The findings demonstrated that type of encoding and item-familiarity influenced immediate as well as delayed free recall in both age groups. Highest recall performances were found for familiar performed items. Both factors affected memory performance separately and did not compensate for each other, either in immediate or in delayed free recall. These findings held true regardless of age. Performed actions were especially resistant against forgetting* indicating that, besides the amount of items encoded, performing while encoding especially enhances the retention of knowledge. Recognition memory also varied with type of encoding. Age-reiated memory differences were found in all free recall tests irrespective of item familiarity and type of encoding, favoring young adults. No age-related memory differences were found in the recognition test. Because of possible ceiling effects, this finding must be treated with care.
Spatial orientation as the ability to know the bearing to the origin of a walked path was investigated in two studies with ca. 140 preschool and primary school children who walked paths of about 1 km beginning at the familiar kindergarten or in a completely unknown territory. Path difficulty and familiarity with the surroundings influenced correctness of pointing. Spatial ability measured by test performance and spatial activity experience, i.e., children’s reports about unsupervised walks, effected pointing accuracy as well. The data emphasize that spatial activity experience may be an important factor for spatial orientation beyond kindergarten age.
Background: Cognitive models of panic disorder are becoming more and more influential. Therefore, research specifying cognitive processes related to panic disorder is needed. The present study investigated memory bias for panic-related material in patients with panic disorder. Methods: Memory bias for panic-related material was investigated experimentally by a memory task requiring classification of panic-related and non-panic-related words. Sixty patients with panic disorder and 60 controls with no diagnosis of a mental disorder participated in the study. Results: As expected, panic patients showed smaller differences in the time needed for classification of panic-related versus non-panic-related material than controls. Conclusions: Patients with panic disorder show a memory bias for panic-related material when conceptual implicit recall is required. In order to clarify whether this bias is involved in the maintenance of the disorder, it seems important to investigate whether the bias is still present after successful therapy.
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