Improving associative memory in older adults with unitization

Abstract

We examined if unitization inherent preexperimentally could reduce the associative deficit in older adults. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults studied compound word (CW; e.g., store keeper) and noncompound word (NCW; e.g., needle birth) pairs. We found a reduction in the age-related associative deficit such that older but not younger adults showed a discrimination advantage for CW relative to NCW pairs on a yes-no associative recognition test. These results suggest that CW compared to NCW word pairs provide schematic support that older adults can use to improve their memory. In Experiment 2, reducing study time in younger adults decreased associative recognition performance, but did not produce a discrimination advantage for CW pairs. In Experiment 3, both older and younger adults showed a discrimination advantage for CW pairs on a two-alternative forced-choice recognition test, which encourages greater use of familiarity. These results suggest that test format influenced young adults' use of familiarity during associative recognition of unitized pairs, and that older adults rely more on familiarity than recollection for associative recognition. Unitization of preexperimental associations, as in CW pairs, can alleviate age-related associative deficits.

Intentional and incidental encoding of item and associative information in the directed forgetting procedure

“…Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). Interestingly, the pattern of results for R-cued and F-cued CW and NCW pairs seen in Experiment 2 mimicked the pattern of associative recognition results observed for young and older adults by Ahmad et al (2015). The incidental encoding of associative information for F-cued pairs benefits from the ease of encoding relations between members of CW pairs in the same way that older adults benefited from the pre-experimental associations afforded by CW pairs.…”

“…Ahmad et al (2015) observed that older adults, like younger adults, also show higher hit and false alarm rates for CW compared to NCW word pairs. In contrast to younger adults, however, older adults show a discrimination advantage for CW pairs.…”

“…Ahmad and Hockley also showed that the encoded CW pairs were unitized and that unitization provides a basis to use familiarity to make associative recognition decisions in the same way that familiarity can be used in making recognition judgments for individual words (see also Quamme, Yonelinas & Norman, 2007). Ahmad, Fernandes, and Hockley (2015) went on to show that the unitization of compound word pair associations can also reduce older adults' associative memory deficit (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) by aiding encoding of associations between items and providing the opportunity for familiarity-based decisions that are known to be spared in older adults.…”

Unitization improves source memory in older adults: An event-related potential study

“…Two recent studies examined this question by using pre-experimentally unitized word associations (i.e., compound words) to manipulate unitization (Ahmad, Fernandes, & Hockley, 2015;Zheng, Li, Xiao, Broster, & Jiang., 2015b). Both studies found that older adults exhibited better associative recognition on the compound word pairs relative to the unrelated words pairs.…”

Frequency Effects on Memory: A Resource-Limited Theory

“…There is overwhelming evidence that WM capacity decreases at a steady rate from about 20 years of age onwards (Brockmole & Logie, 2013;Salthouse & Babcock, 1991), and that this decline is greater for bindings than for item information (Cowan, Naveh-Benjamin, Kilb, & Saults, 2006;Peterson & Naveh-Benjamin, 2016. A large array of varied findings from item and associative recognition also indicates that the underlying cause of most age-related memory impairments is a decreased ability to form novel bindings (Ahmad, Fernandes, & Hockley, 2015;Buchler et al, 2011;Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996;Light, Patterson, Chung, & Healy, 2004). Our model suggests a causal link between the correlated decline in WM capacity and binding ability with age -forming new bindings requires WM resources and the decrease in WM capacity is responsible for the reduced ability to establish and store such bindings (Buchler et al, 2011).…”