Easy or effective? Explaining young adults’ and older adults’ likelihood of using various strategies to improve their memory

STOP SHOUTING AT ME: The Influence of Case and Self-Referencing on Explicit and Implicit Memory

“…Critically, this item memory case enhancement effect was accompanied by steep decreases to context memory, suggesting an item-context memory trade-off, where a slight increase in item memory was associated with context memory decreases. Second, we found a self-reference effect in explicit memory as measured by both item and source context memory, which is consistent with past findings ( Hamami et al, 2011 ; Serbun et al, 2011 ; Leshikar and Duarte, 2012 , 2014 ; Leshikar et al, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ), and further suggests that self-referential processing has a strong influence on episodic memory. Third, we saw no evidence that physical changes to words (case) or processing materials self-referentially had an effect on implicit memory as measured by word stem completion.…”

“…The fact that we found a self-reference effect for source context memory suggests that self-referencing is a powerful mnemonic which supports the encoding of multiple details (item and source) into a retrievable memory representation. This is congruent with previous work showing that self-referencing not only improves memory for the items themselves, but also for other episodic contextual details ( Dulas et al, 2011 ; Hamami et al, 2011 ; Rosa and Gutchess, 2011 ; Serbun et al, 2011 ; Leshikar and Duarte, 2012 , 2014 ; Leshikar et al, 2015 ; Hou et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ). Unlike the source context measure, however, we found no improvement in memory for case context, suggesting some limits to explicit memory improvements that result from self-referencing.…”

“…Such a finding would be in line with past work showing case enhancement effects, but under conditions more carefully controlled (equal presentation of materials in upper and lower case) than past work ( Schulman, 1974 ; Lorch et al, 1995 ; although see Craik and Tulving, 1975 ; Foster and Coles, 1977 ; Hunt and Elliot, 1980 ). Second, we predict the standard self-reference effect in explicit memory for both item and context memory, consistent with prior reports ( Hamami et al, 2011 ; Serbun et al, 2011 ; Leshikar and Duarte, 2012 , 2014 ; Leshikar et al, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ). Finding a memory benefit for contextual details would further show that self-referential processing is a powerful mnemonic that improves explicit memory for multiple details associated with an episode.…”

Ask How They Did It: Untangling the Relationships Between Task-Specific Strategy Use, Everyday Strategy Use, and Associative Memory

“…while strategies used to improve daily functioning are classified as everyday strategy use (Garrett et al, 2010;Hertzog et al, 2019). Compared to their younger peers, older adults are less likely to spontaneously generate or self-initiate internal memory strategies, which involve using cognitive techniques, and are more likely to rely on external memory strategies, such as using environmental aids to support memory (Bouazzaoui et al, 2010;Guerrero et al, 2019;Lineweaver et al, 2020;Pizzonia & Suhr, 2022). Past research shows that older adults' associative memory performance on experimental tasks is significantly related to both everyday self-reported internal strategy use and self-initiated task-specific strategy use during task encoding and retrieval (Cansino et al, 2022;Cohn et al, 2008;Guerrero et al 2019;Guerrero et al, 2021;Hilton et al, 2020;Lachman & Andreoletti, 2006).…”