An Example of Age-associated Interference in Memorizing

Schonfield, A. E. David; Davidson, Heather; Jones, Heather

doi:10.1093/geronj/38.2.204

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…First, the two age groups were similar in terms of numbers of erroneous repetitions (particularly in Experiment 1 where there was stronger evidence for an increase in the Ranschburg effect with age), which suggests that the age groups did not differ in their willingness to include repetitions in their responses. Second, the age difference in the Ranschburg effect in Experiment 1 was identical in the first and second blocks of 24 trials, with M delta values of -0.13 (young) and -0.21 (older) in the first block, and -0.12 (young) and -0.20 (older) in the second block: This also argues against an account of repetition inhibition in terms of proactive interference (Jahnke, 1972), to which older adults may be more susceptible (e.g., Kliegl & Lindenberger, 1993;Schonfield & Davidson, 1983).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Aging and the Ranschburg effect: No evidence of reduced response suppression in old age.

Maylor¹,

Henson²

2000

Psychology and Aging

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Two experiments tested 1 aspect of L. Hasher and R. T. Zacks's (1988) reduced inhibition hypothesis, namely, that old age impairs the ability to suppress information in working memory that is no longer relevant. In Experiment 1, young and older adults were asked to recall lists of letters in the correct order. Half of the lists contained repeated items while half were control lists. Recall of nonadjacent repeated items was worse than that of control items. This Ramschburg effect was larger (i.e., greater response suppression) in older than in young adults. In Experiment 2, young and older adults were required either to recall the list or to report if there was a repeated item. Repetition detection was high and similar in the 2 age groups. When age differences in overall performance were taken into account, there was evidence of increased repetition inhibition with age in both experiments. Thus, contrary to the general reduced inhibition hypothesis, the specific process of response suppression during serial recall is not reduced by aging.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Aging and the Ranschburg effect: No evidence of reduced response suppression in old age.

Maylor¹,

Henson²

2000

Psychology and Aging

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Healthy elderly adults are highly susceptible to this interference (63) and an anecdotal observation was that subjects often recalled information from earlier paragraphs and word lists on subsequent tests during the same day. Thus, the dietary treatments may affect proactive interference and therefore differentially influence performance at later time points.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive performance is associated with glucose regulation in healthy elderly persons and can be enhanced with glucose and dietary carbohydrates

Kaplan

Greenwood

Winocur

et al. 2000

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

167

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: A glucose drink has been shown to improve memory in persons with poor glucose regulation and poor cognition. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine 1) whether an association between cognition and glucose regulation is apparent in healthy seniors and 2) the effects of dietary carbohydrates on cognition. Design: After an overnight fast, 10 men and 10 women (aged 60-82 y) consumed 50 g carbohydrate as glucose, potatoes, or barley or a placebo on 4 separate mornings. Cognitive tests were administered 15, 60, and 105 min after ingestion of the carbohydrate. Plasma glucose and serum insulin were measured. Results: In a multiple regression analysis, poor baseline (placebo) verbal declarative memory (immediate and 20-min delayed paragraph recall and word list recall) and visuomotor task performance were predicted by poor ␤ cell function, high incremental area under the glucose curve, low insulin resistance, and low body mass index. The difference in plasma glucose after food consumption [glucose > potatoes > barley > placebo (P < 0.03)] did not predict performance. Although overall performance did not differ with consumption of the different test foods, baseline score and ␤ cell function correlated with improvements in immediate and delayed paragraph recall for all 3 carbohydrates (compared with placebo); the poorer the baseline memory or ␤ cell function, the greater the improvement (correlation between ␤ cell function and improvement in delayed paragraph recall: r > Ϫ0.50, P < 0.03). Poor ␤ cell function correlated with improvement for all carbohydrates in visuomotor task performance but not on an attention task. Conclusions: Glucose regulation was associated with cognitive performance in elderly subjects with normal glucose tolerance. Dietary carbohydrates (potatoes and barley) enhanced cognition in subjects with poor memories or ␤ cell function independently of plasma glucose.Am J Clin Nutr 2000;72:825-36. KEY WORDSGlucose, carbohydrates, insulin, memory, cognition, elderly subjects, ␤ cells, insulin resistance, glucose regulation, glucose tolerance INTRODUCTIONThe proportion of North Americans with cognitive impairments is increasing as the population ages. It is important to understand environmental factors, such as nutrition, that may help prevent or reduce such deficits (1). However, research examining the role of specific macronutrients on cognitive function in adults is inconclusive (2, 3).Several lines of evidence suggest that impaired glucose regulation is associated with impaired cognition and that improved regulation leads to cognitive improvements. Elderly subjects with type 2 diabetes generally perform worse on memory tests than do age-matched control subjects (4), and nondiabetic subjects with poor glucose regulation perform worse than do those with better regulation (5-12). Moreover, diabetes-associated cognitive deficits can be enhanced by improving glucose regulation with oral hypoglycemic agents (13,14).A wide range of studies have shown that a glucose drink enhan...

show abstract

“…Controls and AD individuals probably would not find a given distractor task equally difficult, making ceiling or floor effects likely for one of the groups if the same distractor task was used for each participant. Thus, we tailored the difficulty of the distractor task in the word recall task to each participant's ability by doing a pretest counting task (see also Mistler-Lachman, 1977;Schonfield et al, 1983).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring semantic memory by investigating buildup and release of proactive interference in healthy older adults and individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type

Multhaup

Balota

Faust

2003

J Int Neuropsychol Soc

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is debate regarding the integrity of semantic memory in dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT). One view argues that DAT is associated with a breakdown in semantic memory; the other argues that DAT is associated with predominantly preserved semantic memory and a breakdown in retrieval. The classic release from proactive interference (RPI) paradigm was used to shed light on this debate. Individuals with early-stage DAT (n = 36) and healthy older adult controls (n = 45) participated in an RPI paradigm. Each trial was a Brown-Peterson task in which participants read three-word lists, counted (for 0, 3, 6, or 9 s), and recalled the words. Both groups showed significant proactive interference (PI), but the size of the PI was significantly smaller in the DAT group. The group difference in PI may be due to the faster forgetting rate in the DAT group. Both groups showed significant RPI and there was no group difference in size when RPI was considered in terms of PI levels. Both groups showed PI and RPI in prior list intrusions. The DAT group's significant buildup and release of PI based on semantic categories suggest predominantly preserved semantic memory activity, at least, in early-stage DAT individuals.

show abstract

An Example of Age-associated Interference in Memorizing

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Aging and the Ranschburg effect: No evidence of reduced response suppression in old age.

Aging and the Ranschburg effect: No evidence of reduced response suppression in old age.

Cognitive performance is associated with glucose regulation in healthy elderly persons and can be enhanced with glucose and dietary carbohydrates

Exploring semantic memory by investigating buildup and release of proactive interference in healthy older adults and individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About