EFFECTS OF CONTEXT ON THE AGING MEMORY

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The broad, long-term objectives of this project are to understand underlying mechanisms that account for differences in how young and elderly adults utilize context present in the memory environment to facilitate or detract from memory for target information. In other words, there are certain elements of one's memory environment which are useful in helping to learn or retrieve information; at the same time there are other forces in the memory environment, such as noise or competing activities, which detract from memory function. To the extent that scientists have a clear understanding of how young and old are differentially affected by context, information can be designed which will be easier for older adults to remember. In addition, such research will provide a more complete theoretical understanding of how human memory functions with advanced age. In the present proposal, a working memory framework is adopted which suggests that older adults differ from young adults in how effectively they integrate contextual information that supports target memory, and inhibit contextual information that detracts from target memory. Thus, age differences in the effectiveness of context are largest when older adults must perform active inhibition or integration operations--both processes associated with working memory function. In the present project, tasks are developed to independently measure subjects' ability to integrate and inhibit context, and then these ability factors are related to experimental -manipulations that are hypothesized to involve integration and inhibition of context. A conceptual taxonomy varying along four dimensions is also proposed for the study of context effects. The dimensions include (a) how strongly related the memory information (target) is to context; (b) whether the context is part of the memory stimulus (target-bound or intra-task) or not (extra-task or environmental context); (c) whether the context supports or detracts from memory; and (d) type of test for context memory--direct or indirect. Most context research on aging has focused on intra-task or target bound context, using direct memory tests. The present research focuses on the other less studied areas of context, including distracting context, environmental context, and effects of context on indirect measures of memory.