Effects of exposurte durations of semantic-related words on false recollection in normal elderly and young adult individuals
Date Issued
2006
Date
2006
Author(s)
Kuo, Ying-Hua
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Literature shows that false memory manifestation results from an overdependence on semantic gist or impaired ability to monitor information. Normal older adults produced more false memory than young adults. The issue regarding whether an overdependence on semantic gist or impaired ability to monitor information in normal older adults has been controversial. Methodological pitfalls in these studies may account for these inconsistent outcomes. Moreover, the issue of the possible underlying neural substrates responsible for false recollection in the normal elderly remains unclear. For these reasons, this study was to make an attempt to examine effects of various exposure durations of semantic-related words on false recall in the normal elderly and also to document manifestation of false recall in normal young adults. Through the relationship between the performance of neuropsychological test and false recall in normal older adults, this study also made an attempt to explore the underlying neurological mechanism regarding the production of false recall in normal older adults
Through the DRM paradigm, researchers have revealed that normal older adults failed to exhibit any reduction in false recall or false recognition after test trails with words presented at 2000 ms, while other studies assume that older adults could exhibit reduction in false recognition after test trails with words presented at 3000 ms. Methodological pitfalls in these studies may account for these inconsistent outcomes. With the DRM paradigm, five presentation durations（20 ms, 250 ms, 1000 ms, 3000 ms, and 5000 ms）of semantic-related words were exposed to normal older adults and normal young controls to re-explore these controversial issues.
Thirty normal older adults and thirty normal young controls matched for the sex, age, and education level had participated in this study. All of the subjects were given a battery of neuropsychological tests and the false memory tasks in which the subjects received five presentation durations of stimulus conditions. The results showed that normal older adults failed to exhibit any reduction in false recall no matter what presentation durations of stimulus conditions were exposed. Young adults exhibited reduction in false recall from the word presentation durations of 20 ms to 1000 ms. After the word presentation duration of 1000nms, young adults performed a little bit of elevated false recall. Furthermore, the relationship between the performance of neuropsychological tests and false recall in normal older adults was not significant in this study
Based on the results, it is suggested that normal older adults relied on memory for the general features or gist of studied materials but tended not to encode or retrieve specific details of individual items. These findings seem further support the Kensinger and Schacter’s claim. However, the relationship between the performance of neuropsychological tests and false recall in normal older adults was not significant in this study. Thus, the issue of the possible underlying neural substrates responsible for false recall in normal elderly individuals remains unclear. Further investigation on this issue with brain imaging technique is needed.
Subjects
正常老人
錯誤記憶
要旨記憶
逐項記憶
normal elderly
false memory
gist memory
verbatim memory
Type
other