Boundary Conditions for Age-related Associative Deficit: Behavioural Moderators and Neural Mechanisms

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Aging usually accompanies with memory decline. Specifically, older adults have difficulty remembering associations among memory elements (e.g., face-name pairs), despite their memory for individual items (e.g., faces or names) tend to be intact. This refers to the age-related associative deficit. Past research suggested that this deficit was absent or much reduced in some boundary conditions when intrinsic (i.e., built in stimuli) or extrinsic support (e.g., strategies/instructions) was provided. However, the field still lacks a systematic examination of these boundary conditions and their working mechanisms (i.e., behavioural or neural). To fill this gap, the proposed research will systematically examine the effects of three boundary conditions that reduce the associative memory deficit in normal aging, as well as the associated behavioural moderators and neural correlates. Specifically, it addresses the following three research questions: 1. Would age-related associative deficit be reduced in the following three boundary conditions: schematic support, value assignment, and item pre-learning? 2. Behaviourally, is the attenuated associative deficit moderated by improved strategic encoding (i.e., learning) and/or controlled retrieval (i.e., recollection) processes? 3. What are the neural correlates for the aforementioned behavioural effects? The leading hypothesis is that older adults' associative deficit would be reduced in the identified boundary conditions, and these changes are marked by enhanced behavioural and neural efficiency. Five experiments will be conducted, with a multi-method approach to collect behavioural, electrophysiological (i.e., EEG), and eye-tracking data. EEG data will be recorded during the word-pair associative learning task in Exp. 2-4, and eye movements will be tracked in Exp. 5. In Exp. 1-3, a modified associative memory procedure will be used to collect trial-by-trial encoding strategy report and to estimate recollection (i.e., remembering specific details of previously experienced events) during retrieval. Exp. 4 is a validation study to directly manipulate and compare encoding strategy use (i.e., deep vs. shallow) and retrieval process (i.e., speeded familiarity vs. slow-paced recollection). Exp. 5 will adopt a novel triplet associative learning paradigm to assess the effect of schematic support on eye-fixation patterns during encoding and on the subsequent cued recall of the two associations in each triplet. Memory for associations is crucial for older adults to lead an active and independent life. Through identifying the boundary conditions, the proposal will advance our understanding of the factors and their behavioural or neural correlates in memory aging. The results will guide the practice of memory prevention or intervention with effective strategies that older adults could use to remember important associative information (e.g., face-name pairs of socially significant others).