Central/incidental recall and selective attention in young and elderly adults

Abstract

Central and incidental recall of young (Mean age=28.4) and elderly (Mean age=70.9) men and women was examined. As expected, statistically significant age differences were found for both central and incidental recall. For the eight items mean central recall (5.72) was significantly higher than mean incidental recall (2.56) at both age levels; mean incidental recall was significantly greater than chance for both age groups. Lack of an age X central/incidental interaction was interpreted as supporting a general recall deficit. No evidence was found to suggest an attentional focusing difference between young and elderly adults. Verbal labeling of the central stimuli had no effect on recall scores. Differential recall for each of eight positions of stimuli was also examined. Both age groups exhibited a spatial primacy-recency effect for central but not incidental recall. No support was obtained for an attentional interpretation of age-associated differences in learning.

Memory and aging: The role of retrieval processes.

“…The studies by Kausler and Lair (1965) and by Mergler, Dusek, and Hoyer (1977) may be interpreted as supporting the position that older adults are less likely to pick up or utilize contextual information, which was available during acquisition (but which subjects had no reason to suppose they would have to remember), because of diminished processing capacity.…”

“…It could also be interpreted as loss of contextual information. Mergler, Dusek, and Hoyer (1977) used an incidental learning task in which subjects were asked to learn the serial order of objects. The objects consisted of cards, each containing a drawing of one animal and one household object.…”

Why Are There Old People

“…During divided attention tasks like the dichotic listening task, the elderly adult has difficulty in evaluating only one channel and ignoring the other; both relevant and irrelevant information processing suffer. Data from component selection and inciden tal learning tasks [Mergler et al" 1977] also suggest that the elder processes less of all incoming information.…”

Ακούσια Και Εκούσια Απομνημόνευση Σε Ασθενείς Με Νευροεκφυλιστικά Νοσήματα

“…Αναφορικά με την επίδραση της ηλικίας, οι περισσότερες από τις προηγούμενες μελέτες καταλήγουν στο συμπέρασμα ότι τα πιο ηλικιωμένα άτομα, σε σχέση με τα νεότερα, παρουσιάζουν έκπτωση της ακούσιας μνήμης. (Joy, Fein, Kaplan & Freedman, 2000;Mergler, Dusek & Hoyer, 1977;Patton & Meit, 1993;Ryan, Kreiner & Tree, 2008;Shuttleworth-Jordan & Bode, 1995 (Eals & Silverman, 1994;Herlitz, Nilsson, & Bäckman, 1997;McGivern et al, 1998;Silverman & Eals, 1992 (Bayley et al, 2000;Foster et al, 2009;Hogervorst et al, 2001;Kuslansky et al, 2004;Lonie et al, 2010;Pozueta et al, 2011;Silva et al, 2012). Βασικό σύμπτωμα τόσο των ασθενών με ΝΑ όσο και των ασθενων με ΗΝΕ είναι η διαταραχές στην εκούσια μνήμη όπου αποτελούν βασικό στοιχείο για την διάγνωση της ΝΑ και της ΗΝΕ (Dubois et al, 2014, McKhann et al, 2011, Petersen, 2004.…”