Memory Function Over Time and Across the Lifespan: Susceptibility to Distortion and Potential for Modification

False Memory;Short-term Memory;Long-term Memory;Memory Training;Encoding Manipulations;Aging;Psychology;Social Sciences;Psychology

Flegal, Kristin EileenShah, Priti R. ;

University of Michigan

关键词: False Memory;    Short-term Memory;    Long-term Memory;    Memory Training;    Encoding Manipulations;    Aging;    Psychology;    Social Sciences;    Psychology;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/86539/kflegal_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Human memory is imperfect, whether in failing to recall some piece of information from the past, or falsely remembering something that didn;;t actually occur. Such errors are of special concern for older adults, as even healthy aging is associated with some decline in memory function. The present research investigates distortions within the putatively separate domains of short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM), and examines the potential for modifying memory performance through encoding strategy manipulations. In a false memory paradigm, the incidence of illusory recognition and accompanying measures of phenomenology (ratings of confidence and recollection) were equivalent under STM and LTM conditions. A levels-of-processing manipulation demonstrated that deep encoding (relative to shallow encoding) was associated with increased false memory rates emerging at long-term testing. Relational encoding, relative to item-specific encoding, was associated with higher levels of recollective phenomenology, even at short delays. Predicted reductions in false memory under item-specific encoding instructions were not observed. In both encoding manipulation experiments, false memory phenomenology was found to be stable from STM to LTM. In a memory training study with older adults, environmental support in the form of fixed encoding time produced training-task improvements as large as those resulting from instruction with an experimenter-provided relational encoding strategy. Furthermore, on a post-training false memory test, only participants who followed the relational encoding strategy did not show a correlation between better training-task performance and greater resistance to false memory, suggesting that the benefit to accurate memory came with the cost of increased vulnerability to related but misleading information. Taken together, these studies shed light on the outcomes of processes engaged at encoding, and reveal commonalities favoring the operation of unitary memory processes at short and long delays.