89,06 75 70,57 86,2 93,23 92,71 84,64 64,58 50,78 69,79 86,72 85,68 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Intact related unrelatedIntact Recombinedrelated Recombinedunrelated New related unrelatedNew
A cc ur acy ra te (% ) Accuracy Young Older
Semantic relatedness of the memoranda prevents older adults from benefitting
from unitization
Emma Delhaye
a, Roni Tibon
b, Nurit Gronau
c, Daniel Levy
d& Christine Bastin
aa
Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liege, Belgium;
bMRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
; cOpen University
of Israel, Israel;
dSchool of Psychology and Sagol Unit for Applied Neuroscience, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel
INTRODUCTION
Aging is characterized by an
associative memory deficit due to impaired recollection (retrieval of the information and qualitative
contextual details). However,
unitization (encoding an association as a whole) would allow associations to be recognized on the basis of
familiarity (recognition without
retrieval of contextual information),
preserved in aging. Moreover,
semantic relatedness between
stimuli is thought to lead to
unitization processes, thereby
promoting associative familiarity at retrieval [1]. This study tested whether older adults’ associative memory could benefit from the
semantic unitizability of the
memoranda through the use of associative familiarity.
METHOD : Participants
Young (N = 24) Older (N = 24) Age (SD) 22,8 (2,43) 68,5 (6,9) Education 14 (1,59) 14,04 (2,97) Mill-Hill (/33) 18,67 (4,22) 22,33 (3,66) Mattis - 139,58 (3,93) Pictures naming (/64) 55,5 (2,55) 57,71 (4,3)• Encoding : « Which of the 2 objects is
the more expensive one ? »
32 pairs of semantically related objects
32 pairs of unrelated objects
3500 ms
• Retrieval : « Intact? Recombined? New? »
+
+
METHODS : Procedure
16 related & 16 unrelated intact 16 related & 16 unrelated recombined 16 related & 16 unrelated new + Remember/Know/Guess (RKG) judgments for « intact » responsesRESULTS
Main effects:
• Young > older (F(1,46)= 12.81; p < 0.001)
• New > intact > recombined (F(2,92) = 27.6; p < 0.001)
Interactions: 0 20 40 60 80 100
Intact Recombined New
Accuracy rate (%) Young Older ** *** *** 0 20 40 60 80 100
Intact Recombined New
Related Unrelated
***
*** *** ***
Group x retrieval category
(F(2,92) = 2.78; p = 0.067)
Retrieval category x relatedness
(F(2,92) = 52.82; p< 0.001)
Errors
• For intact pairs • For recombined pairs • For new pairs
Main effects: • Related < unrelated (F(1,46) = 50.26; p < 0.001) • New < recombined (F(1,46) = 65.04; p < 0.001) Interaction: 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 "Recombined"
responses "New" responses
% errors in the intact condition
Related Unrelated *** *** *** Main effects: • Young < older (F(1,46) = 12.54; p < 0.001) • Unrelated < related (F(1,46) = 37.76; p < 0.001) • New < old (F(1,46) = 24,35; p < 0.001) Interactions: 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
"Old" responses "New" responses
% errors in the recombined condition Related Unrelated *** *** 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
"Old" responses "New" responses
% errors in the recombined condition
Young Older
**
***
Type of erroneous response x group
(F(1,46) = 3.75; p < 0.001)
Type of erroneous response x relatedness
(F(1,46)= 26.66; p < 0.001)
Type of erroneous response x relatedness
(F(1,46)= 33.4; p < 0.001) Main effects: • Young < older (F(1,46) = 5.42; p < 0.05) • Old < recombined (F(1,46) = 43.37; p < 0.001) No interaction ** p < 0,01 ***p < 0,001
RESULTS
RKGCONCLUSION
REFERENCES[1] Tibon, R., Gronau, N., Scheuplein, A.-L., Mecklinger, A., &
Levy, D. A. (2014). Associative recognition processes are modulated by the semantic unitizability of memoranda. Brain and Cognition, 92, 19–31.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SAO-FRA, Fonds Léon Fredericq, the University of Liege, Inter-University Attraction Pole P7/11
C
YCLOTRON
R
ESEARCH
C
ENTRE
| Emma Delhaye
| Emma.Delhaye@ulg.ac.be
• Remember responses 0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 Recombined New FA "Remember" Related Unrelated *** *** *** • Know responses 0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 Recombined New FA "Know" Related Unrelated ** *** ***
Group x retrieval category
(F(1,46)= 8.12; p < 0.01)
For intact pairs:
Related > unrelated (F(1,46)=9,98; p <0,01)
For false recognitions (recombined & new): Older > young (F(1,46)=11,61; p <0,01)
Recombined > new (F(1,46)=43,67; p <0,001)
Related > unrelated (F(1,46)=20,97; p <0,001)
For intact pairs:
Related > unrelated (F(1,46)=4,76; p <0,05)
For false recognitions:
Recombined > new (F(1,46)=19,29; p<0,001)
Related > unrelated (F(1,46)=4,91; p <0,05)
Relatedness x retrieval category
(F(1,46) = 21.95; p < 0.001) Relatedness x retrieval category(F(1,46)= 4.94; p < 0.05)
0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 Recombined New FA "Remember" Young Older *** ***
The relatedness manipulation improved overall recognition of intact pairs by enhancing the use of both recollection and familiarity. Yet, it hindered the identification of recombined pairs as such, with false recognitions also accompanied by more recollection and familiarity. This might be due to an enhancement
of absolute (pre-experimental) familiarity for
semantically related recombined pairs. Moreover, the experimental design in which the relatedness status of the recombined pairs was switched from encoding to retrieval may have facilitated correct rejections of unrelated recombined pairs (coming from related pairs at encoding). With regard to aging, older adults showed the typical age-related associative deficit, which was apparently not alleviated by semantic relatedness. However, their deficit was not obvious in their recognition of intact pairs, in which they performed as well as young adults across relatedness conditions. Rather, the associative deficit seems to stem from older adults’ tendency to falsely recognize recombined pairs, mostly on the basis of recollection. We suggest that these results could be explained by an impairement in the recall-to-reject strategy in older adults.
Self-paced
