source memory problems

Mindfulness may increase susceptibility to false memories

Mindfulness meditation is associated with various positive benefits, one of which is improved attention, but it might not be all good. A new study suggests that it may have negative cognitive consequences.

The study included three experiments, in the first two of which undergraduates carried out a 15-minute guided exercise: one group was instructed to focus attention on their breathing without judgment (mindfulness group); the other group was told to think about whatever came to mind (mind-wandering group; the control).

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Older adults more likely to "remember" misinformation

In a study involving older adults (average age 75) and younger adults (average age 19), participants studied lists of paired related words, then viewed new lists of paired words, some the same as before, some different, and some with only one of the two words the same. In those cases, the "prime" word, which was presented immediately prior to the test, was plausible but incorrect. The older adults were 10 times more likely than young adults to accept the wrong word and falsely "remember" earlier studying that word. This was true even though older adults had more time to study the list of word pairs and attained a performance level equal to that of the young adults. Additionally, when told they had the option to "pass" when unsure of an answer, older adults rarely used the option. Younger adults did, greatly reducing their false recall. The findings reflect real-world reports of a rising incidence of scams perpetrated on the elderly, which rely on the victim’s poor memory and vulnerability to the power of suggestion.

Jacoby, L. L., Bishara, A. J., Hessels, S., & Toth, J. P. (2005). Aging, subjective experience, and cognitive control: dramatic false remembering by older adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 134(2), 131-148. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15869342

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/apa-gmc051005.php

Repeated product warnings are remembered as product recommendations

Warnings about particular products may have quite the opposite effect than intended. Because we retain a familiarity with encountered items far longer than details, the more often we are told a claim about a consumer item is false, the more likely we are to accept it as true a little further down the track. Research also reveals that older adults are more susceptible to this error. It is relevant to note that in the U.S. at least, some 80% of consumer fraud victims are over 65.

Skurnik, I., Yoon, C., Park, D. C., & Schwarz, N. (2005). How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), 713-724. Retrieved from http://econpapers.repec.org/article/ucpjconrs/v_3a31_3ay_3a2005_3ai_3a4_3ap_3a713-724.htm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uocp-nrr032905.php

Source-memory problems not an inevitable consequence of aging, but a function of frontal-lobe efficiency

Source memory is memory for the broad contextual aspects surrounding an event, such as who was speaking, or whether you learned something from a book or TV. Previous research has found that it is in this aspect of memory that older people tend to be particularly poor. In a study that compared older individuals with undergraduates, it was found that those who performed above average on frontal-lobe tests, showed no significant impairment of source memory, regardless of age. Those with below-average performance, tended to have impaired source memory (as a group). In other words, source-memory problems are not an inevitable consequence of aging, as has been widely thought, but rather are a function of frontal-lobe efficiency. The proportion of older adults who experience frontal-lobe decline, at what ages, and to what degree, is unknown at this time.
What’s more, when researchers required people to consider the relation between an item and its context (source), age differences in memory performance completely disappeared, suggesting older adults can learn strategies to remember the context better.

Glisky, E. L., Rubin, S. R., & Davidson, P. S. R. (2001). Source Memory in Older Adults: An Encoding or Retrieval Problem? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(5), 1131-1146. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6X09-46DSYM3-1/2/6ff9dc0f5b6c822c5dd24cbdcb9fd5d4

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-09/apa-ada083101.php

Negative stereotypes about aging affect how well older adults remember

In the study, 64 older adults (60-74; average 70) and 64 college students were compared on a word recognition task. Both groups first took a vocabulary test, on which they performed similarly. They were then presented with 12 lists of 15 semantically related words. For example, one list could have words associated with "sleep," such as "bed," "rest," "awake," "tired" and "night" — but not the word “sleep”. They were not told they would be tested on their memory of these, rather they were asked to rate each word for pleasantness.

Errorless learning not always best for older brains

Following a 1994 study that found that errorless learning was better than trial-and-error learning for amnesic patients and older adults, errorless learning has been widely adopted in the rehabilitation industry. Errorless learning involves being told the answer without repeatedly trying to answer the question and perhaps making mistakes.

Ability to remember memories' origin develops slowly

In the study, 18 children (aged 7-8), 20 adolescents (13-14), and 20 young adults (20-29) were shown pictures and asked to decide whether it was a new picture or one they had seen earlier. Some of the pictures were of known objects and others were fanciful figures (this was in order to measure the effects of novelty in general). After a 10-minute break, they resumed the task — with the twist that any pictures that had appeared in the first session should be judged “new” if that was the first appearance in the second session.

Whether couple’s collaborative dialogue helps spouse's memory

In my book on remembering what you’re doing and what you intend to do, I briefly discuss the popular strategy of asking someone to remind you (basically, whether it’s an effective strategy depends on several factors, of which the most important is the reliability of the person doing the reminding). So I was interested to see a pilot study investigating the use of this strategy between couples.

Have I done it?

I’m not at all sure why the researcher says they were “stunned” by these findings, since it doesn’t surprise me in the least, but a series of experiments into the role of imagination in creating false memories has revealed that people who had watched a video of someone else doing a simple action often remembered doing the action themselves two weeks later.

The problem of 'destination amnesia'

A number of studies have found that source memory (knowing where you heard/read/experienced something) is a particular problem for older adults. Destination memory (knowing who you’ve told) is an area that has been much less studied. Last year I reported on why destination memory is difficult for all of us (my report is repeated below). A follow-up study has found not only that destination memory is a particular problem for older adults, but that it is in fact a worse problem than source memory.