Age-linked changes in LTM contributions to Verbal STM

描述(申请人提供)：这个项目将研究长期记忆变量对年轻人和老年人短期记忆表现的贡献。尽管最近的许多研究表明，通常与长期记忆相关的变量会影响年轻人的言语短期记忆表现，但这些变量对老年人记忆广度表现的影响尚未得到充分证实。此外，关于长期记忆变量如何影响短期记忆表现，记忆研究人员之间存在着很大的争论。这项拟议的研究将通过让老年人和年轻人参与涉及变量的任务来解决这些经验和理论问题，这些变量已被证明会影响年轻人和儿童的记忆广度。这些任务的结果将与主要的衰老和记忆理论的预测进行比较，以确定哪个框架最能解释不同刺激类型的年龄相关表现差异。这项研究的成果将是对短期和长期记忆相关机制的更全面的理论理解，以及对衰老对短期记忆表现的影响的更好理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will study the contributions of long-term memory variables to short-term memory performance in young and older adults. Although many recent studies have shown that variables typically associated with long-term memory affect verbal short-term memory performance in young adults, the effects of these variables on memory span performance in older adults are not well-established. Additionally, there is substantial debate among memory researchers as to how long-term memory variables contribute to short-term memory performance. The proposed research will address these empirical and theoretical issues by including older as well as young adults in tasks involving variables that have been shown to affect memory span in young adults and children. These results from these tasks will be compared with predictions from leading theories of aging and memory to determine which framework can best account for age-related differences in performance across stimulus types. The product of this research will be a fuller theoretical understanding of the mechanisms relating short- and long-term memory and a better understanding of the effects of aging on short-term memory performance.