The role of attention and ageing in the retrieval dynamics of value-directed remembering

Abstract

For memory to be efficient, people need to remember important information. This involves selective encoding and retrieval operations to maximize the recall of valuable information at the expense of less important information. While past research has examined this in terms of strategic encoding operations, we investigated differences in the dynamics of retrieval in value-directed remembering tasks with younger adults under full and divided attention during encoding as well as in older adults. Participants typically initiated recall with the first presented, last presented, or highest-valued words and also strategically organized retrieval according to information value such that high-value words tended to be recalled before low-value words. However, the average value of older adults’ first recalled word was greater than that of younger adults, likely contributing to their enhanced selectivity. Additionally, there were no differences in lag-conditional-response probabilities in younger adults under full or divided attention but older adults showed impairments in the retrieval of items sharing contextual features with nearby items while younger adults relied more on temporal-contextual cues to recall words. Together, the present study suggests that both strategic encoding and strategic retrieval operations contribute to selectivity for valuable information and older adults may be able to maximize retrieval operations despite displaying impairments in temporal binding during encoding and an overall recall deficit.

Differential effects of proactive and retroactive interference in value-directed remembering for younger and older adults.

“…In Experiment 1, we replicated previous work (e.g., Castel et al, 2002;Murphy & Castel, 2022a; see Knowlton & Castel, 2022; This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…For example, the word “health” may be more valuable to an older adult relative to a younger adult, and this could subsequently impact how information is prioritized in memory for health and medication information (see Hargis & Castel, 2018a; Whatley et al, 2021). Moreover, future research could examine memory in more systematic ways to determine the precise retroactive and/or proactive effects by testing associative memory (using paired associated learning and cued recall, see Jacoby et al, 2010) as opposed to using free recall which may encourage more strategic encoding and retrieval dynamics (e.g., Murphy & Castel, 2022a; Stefanidi et al, 2018) for high-value items.…”

Disrupted Value-Directed Strategic Processing in Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment: Behavioral and Neural Correlates

“…Impaired recall of high-value words in the MCI group compared to the CNC group may stem from underlying deficits in episodic memory (encoding, storage, and retrieval). Studies supporting preserved strategic recall in cognitively normal older adults have posited that strategic encoding of higher-value items relative to lower-value items, as well as strategic retrieval of higher-value items before lower-value items, reduces the chance of forgetting more valuable information [ 71 , 72 ]. Individuals with MCI in the current study may have impairments in strategic encoding, strategic recall, or both.…”

“…However, it may also be the case that the individuals with MCI forgot the low-value words. The use of a value-directed directed forgetting paradigm with a recognition test [ 72 , 76 ] in future studies could help elucidate whether individuals with MCI are indeed inhibiting the low-value information (i.e., recognize the to-be-forgotten items) or whether they have forgotten the items (i.e., would not recognize the to-be-forgotten items). It is also likely that our sample size was small for capturing group differences in low-value word recall given that, typically, fewer low-value words are recalled relative to high-value words.…”

“…In addition, tracking the order of word recall could aid our understanding of strategic retrieval in individuals with MCI (e.g., do they recall high-value items first?) [ 72 ]. Lastly, studies that have used list learning tasks have shown reductions in spontaneous strategy use in cognitively normal older adults [ 96 , 97 , 98 ] and in individuals with MCI [ 22 , 73 , 74 , 75 ].…”