Aging Affects the Interaction between Attentional Control and Source Memory: An fMRI Study

Abstract

Age-related source memory impairments may be due, at least in part, to deficits in executive processes mediated by the PFC at both study and test. Behavioral work suggests that providing environmental support at encoding, such as directing attention toward item-source associations, may improve source memory and reduce age-related deficits in the recruitment of these executive processes. The present fMRI study investigated the effects of directed attention and aging on source memory encoding and retrieval. At study, participants were shown pictures of objects. They were either asked to attend to the objects and their color (source) or to their size. At test, participants determined if objects were seen before, and if so, whether they were the same color as previously. Behavioral results showed that direction of attention improved source memory for both groups; however, age-related deficits persisted. fMRI results revealed that, across groups, direction of attention facilitated medial temporal lobe-mediated contextual binding processes during study and attenuated right PFC postretrieval monitoring effects at test. However, persistent age-related source memory deficits may be related to increased recruitment of medial anterior PFC during encoding, indicative of self-referential processing, as well as underrecruitment of lateral anterior PFC-mediated relational processes. Taken together, this study suggests that, even when supported, older adults may fail to selectively encode goal-relevant contextual details supporting source memory performance.

The neural correlates of recollection and retrieval monitoring: Relationships with age and recollection performance

“…The loci of these ‘monitoring effects’ overlapped the effects reported in prior studies, despite the employment of a very different memory test (associative recognition rather than Remember/Know) and, consequently, a quite different operationalization of retrieval monitoring. As was also reported in three previous studies where PFC monitoring effects were contrasted according to age group (Giovanello et al, 2010; Dulas & Duarte, 2014; Wang et al, 2016; see also Mark & Rugg, 1998, and Dulas & Duarte, 2013, for convergent ERP evidence), the present effects were age-invariant. These findings are seemingly inconsistent with the results of two other studies where fMRI monitoring effects were contrasted according to age (McDonough et al, 2013; Mitchell et al, 2013).…”

“…A relatively small number of fMRI studies have investigated the effects of age on the neural correlates of monitoring and, echoing findings from studies of recollection success, have yielded inconsistent results (see, for example, Duarte et al, 2010; Giovanello et al, 2010; Dulas & Duarte, 2014; Wang et al, 2016, for reports of null effects of age, and McDonough et al, 2013, and Mitchell et al, 2013, for reports of age-related impairment in monitoring-related activity in rDLPFC). Here, we examined whether fMRI ‘monitoring effects’ are sensitive not only to age, but also to individual differences in memory performance (cf.…”

Age-related changes in neural oscillations supporting context memory retrieval

“…We tentatively suggest that this prefrontal-hippocampal communication may be age-invariant during context retrieval. This would be consistent with previous neuroimaging findings showing age invariance for medial temporal lobe contributions during episodic retrieval (Dulas & Duarte, 2014; Duverne et al, 2009; Morcom et al, 2007). Nonetheless, the diagnostic quality of the episodic information, with respect to the contextual decision, reflected in this communication likely differs between young and older adults.…”

“…Emerging evidence suggests that explicitly instructing both younger and older adults to attend to the relationship between an item and its context increases memory for the item-context association in both groups (Dulas & Duarte, 2013, 2014; Glisky & Kong, 2008; Glisky, Rubin, & Davidson, 2001; Hashtroudi, Johnson, Vnek, & Ferguson, 1994; Kuo & Van Petten, 2006; Naveh-Benjamin, Brav, & Levy, 2007). For example, directing attention to an item-color association (e.g., “Is this a likely color for this item?”) increases memory for that association over directing attention to the item alone (e.g., “Is this item smaller than a shoebox?”) (Dulas & Duarte, 2013).…”

Neuropsychology of aging, past, present and future: Contributions of Morris Moscovitch

“…In fact, the source memory deficits outlined by Moscovitch & Winocur (1992) may arise in part from a failure to spontaneously engage associative strategies at encoding. In a recent study that tests this idea, Dulas and Duarte (2014) examined the effect of directing attention to object-feature associations on source memory encoding and retrieval processes. They found that for both age groups, directed attention was associated with increased activity in medial temporal (i.e.…”