The Cognitive Aging of Episodic Memory: A View Based on the Event-Related Brain Potential

Abstract

A cardinal feature of older-adult cognition is a decline, relative to the young, in the encoding and retrieval of personally relevant events, i.e., episodic memory (EM). A consensus holds that familiarity, a relatively automatic feeling of knowing that can support recognition-memory judgments, is preserved with aging. By contrast, recollection, which requires the effortful, strategic recovery of contextual detail, declines as we age. Over the last decade, event-related brain potential (ERPs) have become increasingly important tools in the study of the aging of EM, because a few, well-researched EM effects have been associated with the cognitive processes thought to underlie successful EM performance. EM effects are operationalized by subtracting the ERPs elicited by correctly rejected, new items from those to correctly recognized, old items. Although highly controversial, the mid-frontal effect (a positive component between ∼300 and 500 ms, maximal at fronto-central scalp sites) is thought to reflect familiarity-based recognition. A positivity between ∼500 and 800 ms, maximal at left-parietal scalp, has been labeled the left-parietal EM effect. A wealth of evidence suggests that this brain activity reflects recollection-based retrieval. Here, I review the ERP evidence in support of the hypothesis that familiarity is maintained while recollection is compromised in older relative to young adults. I consider the possibility that the inconsistency in findings may be due to individual differences in performance, executive function, and quality of life indices, such as socio-economic status.

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

“…However, there is accumulating evidence that indicates that familiarity can also contribute to source recognition when the source and item are unitized during encoding (Diana et al, 2008(Diana et al, , 2010Diana et al, 2011;Tu & Diana, 2016). We speculated that the normal older adults could benefit from the enhanced engagement of familiarity during the source retrieval in the unitized encoding condition, as their familiarity is relatively spared (Daselaar et al, 2006;Friedman, 2013;Howard et al, 2006;Koen & Yonelinas, 2014). The present results confirmed this speculation by demonstrating the reduced age differences in the source memory in the encoding condition that encouraged unitization relative to that of the condition that did not encourage unitization, which is consistent with the findings of Bastin et al (2013).…”

“…For the ERP results, we expected that the source recognition in the unitized condition would evoke a greater early frontal old/new effect than that of the non-unitized condition for both the young and older adults. This ERP effect would be due to the enhanced contribution of the familiarity to the associative retrieval in the unitized condition (Bader et al, 2010;Diana et al, 2011;Rhodes & Donaldson, 2008) and the relatively preserved familiarity in the older adults (Friedman, 2013;Koen & Yonelinas, 2014). Further, since older adults showed impaired recollection (Ally, Simons, McKeever, Peers, & Budson, 2008;Guillaume, et al, 2009;Nessler, Friedman, Johnson, & Bersick, 2007;Wang et al, 2012), and post-retrieval monitoring processes (Cansino, Hernandez-Ramos, & Trejo-Morales, 2012;McDonough, Wong, & Gallo, 2013;Guillaume, et al, 2009;Trott, Friedman, Ritter, Fabiani, & Snodgrass, 1999;Wegesin, Friedman, Varughese, & Stern, 2002), and unitization affects familiarity more than recollection and other processes (Rhodes & Donaldson, 2007Parks & Yonelinas, 2015), we hypothesized that the left parietal and late right frontal old/new effects would be significantly lower during the source recognition in the older adults than in the young adults in both encoding conditions.…”

“…It has been assumed that both familiarity and recollection can independently support item memory, whereas only recollection can support associative memory for which the context or source details associated with the item are consciously retrieved (Wilding, 2000;Woodruff, Johnson, Uncapher, & Rugg, 2005;Rugg, Schloerscheidt, & Mark, 1998; see Diana, Yonelinas, & Ranganath, 2007;Rugg & Yonelinas, 2003 for reviews). The increased age differences in associative memory relative to item memory have been attributed to impaired recollection, despite having a relatively preserved familiarity in older adults (Cohn, Emrich, & Moscovitch, 2008;Daselaar, Fleck, Dobbins, Madden, & Cabeza, 2006;Friedman, 2013;Howard, Bessette-Symons, Zhang, & Hoyer, 2006;Koen & Yonelinas 2014;Yonelinas, 2002; but see Wang, de Chastelaine, Minton, & Rugg, 2012).…”

Electrophysiological evidence for the effects of unitization on associative recognition memory in older adults

“…149 The early frontal old/new effect, maximal at bilateral frontal scalp 150 between around 300 and 500 ms, has been thought to reflect famil-151 iarity-based recognition (Friedman & Johnson, 2000; Rugg & 152 Curran, 2007; but see Paller, Voss, & Boehm, 2007), and the parietal 153 old/new effect maximal at left parietal regions and occurring 154 between 500 and 800 ms is believed to reflect recollection-based 155 recognition (Rugg & Curran, 2007). Finally, the late right frontal 156 old/new effect that occurs between about 800 and 1600 ms has 157 been associated with post-retrieval monitoring and evaluation 158 processes and is likely linked to executive function of right pre-159 frontal cortex (Friedman, 2013;Hayama, Johnson, & Rugg, 2008). 160 In a standard associative recognition task, the participants were 161 asked to remember the compound words or unrelated word pairs as 162 associations during an initial study phase.…”

Older Adults and Psychoanalytic Treatment: It's About Time

“…For example,, there are declines in episodic memory, which is the encoding and retrieval of personally relevant events (Friedman, 2013) and in executive functioning, which may cause impairments in financial and medical decision making (Boyle et al, 2013). Also, there are declines in those cognitive and affective mentalizing processes known as theory of mind (Cavallini et al, 2013).…”