Auditory Priming in Elderly Adults: Impairment of Voice-Specific Implicit Memory

Abstract

Previous research has shown that elderly adults often exhibit intact priming effects on visual implicit memory tests, but little is known about auditory priming and ageing. We examined priming effects on auditory stem-completion and filter identification tasks in older and younger adults. Young subjects showed more priming when speaker's voice was the same as study and test than when it differed, but elderly subjects failed to exhibit this voice-specific priming effect in each of five experiments. The elderly did, however, show robust nonspecific priming. We attempt to rule out hearing deficit accounts of the priming impairment and consider alternative theoretical interpretations of the effect.

Perceptual and lexical components of auditory repetition priming in young and older adults

“…Nevertheless, one could argue that modality changes are coarse alterations of the physical features of the stimulus material, and thus the possibility exists that the processing of fine-grained perceptual details might still be affected by aging. In support of this notion, Schacter et al (1994), who examined the effects of voice changes in auditory perceptual identification and stem completion, found that these changes affected priming in young adults, but not in older adults. Specifically, young adults exhibited greater priming for words presented in the same voice (SV) at study and at test than for words presented in a different voice (DV), whereas older adults showed no extra priming benefit when there was a voice match.…”

“…Studies in which priming in healthy older adults has been examined have found either intact priming (Howard, Fry, & Brune, 1991;Java & Gardiner, 1991;Light, La Voie, Valencia-Laver, Albertson Owens, & Mead, 1992;Light & Singh, 1987;Mitchell,1989;Moscovitch,1982) or small age-related deficits (Chiarello & Hoyer, 1988;Davis et al, 1990;Fleischman & Gabrieli, 1998;Hultsch, Masson, & Small, 1991;Schacter, Church, & Osowiecki, 1994), suggesting that this phenomenon, unlike deliberate retrieval, is largely immune to aging. Findings that overall repetition priming effects are relatively constant across age groups do not, however, unequivocally support the assumption that the processes that produce these effects are entirely age insensitive.…”

Exposure effects on music preference and recognition

“…On the other hand, the factors that are responsible for the voice-specific effects in implicit memory for words are not yet fully understood. Voice-specific effects are not found systematically (see, e.g., Schacter, Church, & Bolton, 1995;Schacter, Church, & Osowiecki, 1994) and are currently the object of intensive work (see, e.g., Goldinger, 1996;.…”

How to drastically reduce priming in word stem completion—and still present the words

“…Our findings could be considered further evidence ofthe specificity of implicit memory. Specificity of priming effects are found often when changes in surface features of words between presentation and test affect nonrecollective memory, as in changes of modality (Bassili, Smith, & McLeod, 1989), typography (Gibson et aI., 1993) or voice of spoken stimuli (Schacter, Church, & Osowiecki, 1994). Schacter (1990) proposed a systems approach to account for the specificity ofpriming effects.…”