Goals and Motivation to Remember Important Information in Old Age

描述(由申请人提供)：虽然老年人通常表现出各种记忆障碍，但目标和动机会影响人们的记忆，并可以帮助老年人记住重要信息。这项拟议的研究考察了目标如何通过有选择地记住客观和主观重要信息的战略重点来激励和改善老年人的记忆。这是通过让年轻人和老年人根据信息的价值或重要性记住信息来检验的，而信息的价值或重要性程度可以根据一个人的目标而有所不同。我们通过让年轻人和老年人评估某些需要记住的信息单元对一项任务的重要性(例如，当打包旅行时)或他们对信息的兴趣程度(例如，当学习新的琐碎问题的答案时)来测试这一点，以确定较晚的记忆是否与重要性和兴趣的评级有关，以及重要信息的记忆表现的年龄差异是否缩小。我们还研究了当老年人被要求与另一个人交流有趣或重要的信息时，他们的记忆和选择性处理是如何增强的，这表明社交交流可以促进和增强对重要信息的记忆。然后，我们测试老年人如何使用财务和社会信息来指导，有时还选择性地偏向与金钱奖励/损失和社会地位相关的面孔记忆。我们将这项工作扩展到实际的和理论指导的翻译情景，例如记住药物的关键副作用，并使用策略记住服药的积极和消极影响。这一发现对财务决策、退休计划以及在服药时监测和保持良好的健康状况具有重要意义。综上所述，这项拟议的研究有可能通过提供一种有效的基于目标的策略来记忆重要信息，从而提高老年人的生活质量和独立性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While older adults typically show a variety of memory impairments, goals and motivation can influence what people remember, and can help older adults remember important information. The proposed research examines how goals can motivate and improve memory in older adults, through the strategic focus on selectively remembering both objectively and subjectively important information. This is examined by having younger and older adults remember information based on the value or importance of the information, and value or level of importance can differ based on one's goals. We test this by having younger and older adults rate how important certain to-be-remembered units of information are to remember for a task (e.g., when packing for a trip) or how interested they are in the information (e.g., when learning answers to novel trivia questions), to determine if later memory is related to ratings of importance and interest, and if age-differences in memory performance are reduced for important information. We also examine how older adults' memory and selective processing is enhanced when they are asked to communicate interesting or important information to another individual, suggesting that social communication can facilitate and enhance memory for important information. We then test how older adults use financial and social information to guide, and sometimes selectively bias, memory for faces associated with monetary rewards/losses, and social status. We extend this work to a practical and theoretically-guided translational situation, such as remembering critical side effects of medications, and using strategies to remember the positive and negative effects of taking the medication. The findings have implications for financial decision-making, planning for retirement as well as monitoring and maintaining good health when taking medications. Taken together, the proposed research has the potential to enhance the quality of life and independence of older adults by providing an efficient goal-based strategy to remember important information.