Journal
PSYCHOLOGY AND AGING
Volume 33, Issue 7, Pages 1079-1092Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/pag0000303
Keywords
aging; episodic memory; associative memory; autobiographical memory; temporal context
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Funding
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research [MGP-62963, MOP 367366]
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship
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Normal aging is typically associated with reduced ability to reconstruct the spatiotemporal context of past events, a core component of episodic memory. However, little is known about our ability to remember the order of events comprising extended real-world experiences and how this ability changes with age. We leveraged the richness and structure of a museum exhibit to address this question. Three months after visiting the exhibit, 141 adults aged 18-84 completed a test of spatiotemporal order memory and old/new recognition using pictures from the exhibit and similar lures, from which measures of associative and item memory were derived. Order discrimination accuracy was modulated by interitem order and distance in younger and older adults, extending findings from recognition of laboratory stimuli at short delays to remote real-world experiences. In contrast to established findings from laboratory-based assessments, we observed a significant effect of aging on item memory driven by increased lure susceptibility, but no age-related reduction in spatiotemporal associative memory. These findings present novel insights into different components of memory for real-world experiences at naturalistic timescales and across the lifespan.
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