Neural mechanisms of lifespan age differences in episodic memory formation: Separating associative and strategic components
Final Report Abstract
Episodic memory (EM) performance increases during childhood and declines during old age. Despite similarity in performance levels, the two-component framework of EM highlights the specificities of EM functioning in different age periods. We further posit that it is important to examine both the successes and the failures of the EM system in order to fully understand how basic mechanisms of EM change across the lifespan. Our work suggests that children’s difficulties in EM may be partly due to deficiency in enhancing representation signals, resulting in less successful reinstatement of episodes. In contrast, older adults commit more memory errors due to difficulties in inhibiting currently irrelevant information. These findings provide evidence for a lifespan dissociation of the mechanisms that characterize memory performance in childhood and old age, particularly the enhancement of relevant and suppression of irrelevant information. At the neural level, development from middle childhood to adulthood may lead to reorganization of the neural circuitry contributing to successful EM, namely from hippocampal dependent to increased involvement of the PFC. Aging-related increase in false memory, on the other hand, may be due to both a monitoring deficit from impaired involvement of prefrontal regions as well as reduced hippocampal responses to novel constellation of familiar information. Importantly, there is a substantial amount of individual difference in EM aging. In particular, underrecruitment of the frontoparietal network for strategic memory processing contributes to worse performance in associative memory. Therefore, maintenance of youth-like task-relevant activation patterns is critical for preserving memory functions in later adulthood. As an outlook, longitudinal evidence is needed to further corroborate the notion that maintenance is an important general factor in promoting high-level EM functioning in later adulthood.
Publications
- (2012). Heterogeneity in memory training improvement among older adults: A latent class analysis. Memory, 20, 554-567
Fandakova, Y., Shing, Y. L., & Lindenberger, U.
- (2012). The development of episodic memory across the lifespan: Integrating behavioral and neural evidence. ISSBD Bulletin, 61(1), 11-16
Shing, Y. L., & Lindenberger, U.
- (2013). Differences in binding and monitoring mechanisms contribute to lifespan age differences in false memory. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1822-1832
Fandakova, Y., Shing, Y. L., & Lindenberger, U.
- (2013). High-confidence memory errors in old age: The roles of monitoring and binding processes. Memory, 21, 732-750
Fandakova, Y., Shing, Y. L., & Lindenberger, U.
- (2014). Age differences in short-term memory binding are related to working memory performance across the lifespan. Psychology and Aging, 29, 140-149
Fandakova, Y., Sander, M. C., Werkle-Bergner, M., & Shing, Y. L.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035347) - (2014). Deficits in processspecific prefrontal and hippocampal activations contribute to adult age differences in episodic memory interference. Cerebral Cortex, 24, 1832-1844
Fandakova, Y., Lindenberger, U., & Shing, Y. L.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bht034) - (2014). Plasticity of brain and cognition in older adults. Psychological Research, 78, 790-802
Brehmer, Y., Kalpouzos, G., Wenger, E., & Lövdén, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-014-0587-z)
