The aging episodic memory and its plasticity: A cross-cultural approach

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Jutta Kray; Professor Dr. Axel Mecklinger
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411083073

The aging episodic memory and its plasticity: A cross-cultural approachEpisodic memory (i.e., the ability to learn and remember an episode with its specific temporal and spatial context) impairments are prominent in healthy older adults and in patients with amnesic mild cognitive impairments (aMCI) who are at high risk for the development of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Cross-cultural research has indicated that Westerners in a relatively individualized, independent culture are inclined to process context-independent and categorical information, whereas East Asians in a more collectivistic tradition pay more attention to contextual and relational information (Park & Gutchess, 2006). However, not much is known on how culture-related lifelong experiences moderate age-related and neurodegenerative deficits in episodic memory, and how this is reflected in the associated neural underpinnings.The main goal of the proposed research project is to examine the contribution of lifelong experience with cultural values and practices on age differences in long-term episodic memory processes and its neural underpinnings and to develop and validate a culturally adapted memory training intervention for healthy older adults and a-MCI patients. In more detail, we will use an Age by Culture interaction approach to explore how two subprocesses of episodic memory, familiarity and recollection and their electrophysiological correlates (the FN400 and LPC, respectively) are modulated by culture. In the first project part we plan a systematic investigation of how memory for objects and scenes and source memory for valued information are modulated by culture in different age groups. Here it will be explored whether items and context (or source) can be fused to a unitized representation and remembered on the basis of familiarity. A special focus will be how culture and age modulate strategic retrieval processing (i.e. retrieval orientation).In Part 2 we aim to develop and validate a culturally adapted memory intervention program for healthy older adults and aMCI patients. Given that familiarity-based unitization is relatively preserved in both healthy older adults and a-MCI patients (Koen & Yonelinas, 2014), we predict that the culturally preferred mnemonic strategy training (i.e., relational associations in Chinese and categorical associations in Germans) will produce the largest benefits in associative remembering as well as enhanced FN400 and reduced LPC effects.The findings will not only provide novel insights into the relative contributions of nature (i.e., biological decline) and nurture (i.e., culture experience) to cognitive aging. They also have important practical and clinical implications in creating aging-specific and effective memory training programs which will ameliorate the quality of life among older adults and prevent and delay the onset of dementia in both cultures.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China
• Partner Organisation: National Natural Science Foundation of China
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Juan Li