CONTEXT EFFECTS ON THE AGING MEMORY

目前的建议集中在两个主要问题上：理解什么是 认知机制解释了记忆功能的年龄差异， 老年人和探索这些机制如何与能力， 老年人使用支持性的背景信息，以提高他们的 记忆功能我们假设，记忆功能的年龄差异， 老年人使用语境的能力可以用一个 单一结构：心理努力的结构。在过去， 被许多记忆理论家认为是一个无法验证的想法， 被证明不可能独立测量认知量 一个主题带入一种情况的资源，并将此资源 记忆任务产生的需求。我们认为，最近的工作， 我们的实验室和其他一些实验室（Salthouse; Lindenberger，Mayr，& Hultsch，Hertzog，&狄克逊）已经开发出了很好的方法来获得 认知资源的估计。在这项研究中，我们建议使用 结合个体差异方法和更传统的 实验程序，以了解心理努力的作用， 解释了许多类型记忆的年龄差异模式， 来解释记忆环境对记忆的影响。我们特别 建议确定处理资源的作用（操作为 感知速度和工作记忆的联合效应）和现有的 解释年龄差异和年龄差异案例的知识结构 在不同类型的记忆中使用上下文的不变性。我们提出 重建环境支持的背景和老化观点 一种更精确的连续的精神努力。实验1 第二，我们使用结构方程模型来研究结构 测量认知资源和世界知识有助于年龄 不同类型的记忆。在实验3和4中，我们检查 使用起来非常费力的上下文不仅不能支持 老年人的记忆，但实际上可能对他们来说更有问题， 完全没有上下文支持。在实验5中，我们考察了年龄 刻意回忆和熟悉成分的差异 记忆我们确定这些组件在其贡献方面的差异， 记忆取决于记忆任务的关联上下文是否 容易或难以使用的老年人。在实验6和7中，我们观察 努力和任务要求如何影响前瞻记忆，并在实验中 8、我们考察了环境背景作为一种记忆类型的作用 支持老年人。

The present proposal is focused on two major issues: understanding what cognitive mechanisms account for age differences in memory function in older adults and exploring how these mechanisms relate to the ability of older adults to use supportive contextual information to enhance their memory function. We postulate that age-differences in memory function and older adults' ability to use context can be accounted for in terms of a single construct: the construct of mental effort. In the past, this has been viewed as an untestable idea by many memory theorists, as it has proven impossible to independently measure the amount of cognitive resources that a subject brought into a situation and relate this resource to the demands created by the memory task. We believe that recent work in our laboratory and in a few other labs (Salthouse; Lindenberger, Mayr, & Kliegl; Hultsch, Hertzog, & Dixon) have developed good ways to get estimates of cognitive resources. In this research, we propose to use a combination of individual differences methodologies and more traditional experimental procedures to understand the role of mental effort in accounting for patterns of age differences across many types of memory and to explain the effects of memory context on remembering. Specifically, we propose to determine the roles of processing resource (operationalized as the joint effects of perceptual speed and working memory) and existing knowledge structures to explain age differences and cases of age invariance in use of context across different types of memory. We propose to restructure the environmental support view of context and aging within a more precisely specified continuum of mental effort. In Experiments 1 and 2, we use structural equation models to examine how constructs measuring cognitive resource and world knowledge contribute to age differences across many types of memory. In Experiment 3 and 4, we examine how context which is highly effortful to use, may not only fail to support memory in older adults, but may actually be more problematic for them then receiving no contextual support at all. In Experiment 5, we examine age differences in the deliberate recollection and familiarity components of memory. We determine how these components differ in their contribution to memory depending on whether the associative context of the memory task is easy or hard to use for older adults. In Experiments 6 and 7, we look at how effort and task demands affect prospective memory, and in Experiment 8, we examine the role of environmental context as a type of memory support for older adults.