The role of metacognition and schematic support in younger and older adults' episodic memory

Cluttered memory representations shape cognition in old age

“…The prices were either unrealistic or realistic and, thus, could engage prior knowledge. Consistent with previous work [14,59,61], older, but not younger, adults showed better performance in the realistic, relative to the unrealistic, condition, displaying a memory advantage for information consistent with prior knowledge. Neurally, performance in the realistic, but not unrealistic, condition was associated with DMN activity during encoding, as well as at retrieval, in both older and younger adults.…”

“…Although heightened DMN activity is associated with poorer target memory, other work in young adults suggests that, when a task particularly engages prior knowledge (e.g., by using famous as opposed to non-famous faces), greater DMN activity might support memory performance by activating that knowledge and incorporating it into encoded memory representations [25,91]. This might be the case particularly for older adults [14,61]. One study [92] examined whether reduced DMN suppression in older adults is related to the integration of novel, meaningful information into existing knowledge networks and, consequently, enhanced memory for that information.…”

“…Classic behavioral work illustrates that prior knowledge shapes memory representations and recall patterns in older adults, resulting in benefits or detriments depending on the task and context (reviewed in [58]). When encoded information is consistent with, or capitalizes on, older adults' prior knowledge, that knowledge can support episodic memory, and even bolster it to the same level as that of younger adults [14,[59][60][61][62]. Indeed, multiple studies report that typical age differences in associative memory [63] are mediated by the meaningfulness of the stimuli and their consistency with prior knowledge, such that age differences are minimized in conditions that use naturally co-occurring elements and engage prior knowledge [14,61,62,[64][65][66].…”

“…When encoded information is consistent with, or capitalizes on, older adults' prior knowledge, that knowledge can support episodic memory, and even bolster it to the same level as that of younger adults [14,[59][60][61][62]. Indeed, multiple studies report that typical age differences in associative memory [63] are mediated by the meaningfulness of the stimuli and their consistency with prior knowledge, such that age differences are minimized in conditions that use naturally co-occurring elements and engage prior knowledge [14,61,62,[64][65][66]. Thus, when novel information activates prior knowledge representations, a process more likely to occur under circumstances of reduced control [22,23], older adults show a greater memory benefit than younger adults (see [57,58,61] for evidence and discussion of 'schematic support' in older adults).…”

Thinking about thinking about thinking … & feeling: A model for metacognitive and meta‐affective processes in task engagement

“…Rather, we present this framework as a means to spark research that integrates motivation and task demands into the general thinking of how metacognition operates across various affective and cognitive processes. Our own research, as well as the research of others discussed in this review have provided some evidence for a causal relationship between motivation and metacognition(Jang et al, 2020;Sidi et al, 2018); prior knowledge and metacognition(Mihalca & Mengelkamp, 2020;Whatley & Castel, 2021); task demands and control(Dai, 2020;Fiechter & Benjamin, 2018;Palmer et al, 2010;Toppino & Pagano, 2021); monitoring and control(DeCaro & Thomas, 2019;Efklides, 2014;Koriat et al, 2014), control and output(Bulevich & Thomas, 2012;Undorf et al, 2021), and finally between cognitive resources and metacognition(Murphy & Castel, 2020;Peng & Tullis, 2021;Thomas et al, 2011Thomas et al, , 2013. However, additional empirical research will help to refine this framework and promote its value in uniting the presently independent fields investigating metacognition.…”