Abstract
The ability to benefit from various kinds of cognitive support in episodic memory was studied in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35–80 years (N = 1,000). The participants studied pictures of faces and names of 10-year-old children with instructions to remember the faces and the surnames. After study, an implicit name stem-completion test was administered, followed by face- and name-recognition tests. There was a negative age effect across all task variables. Across age, recognition was higher for faces than for names. An age-invariant positive effect of intention to learn was observed. Also, name completion and recognition performance showed a positive relationship across the adult life span. Overall, the results are in agreement with the views that (a) age-related episodic memory deficits are highly generalizable and (b) effects of cognitive support on memory are typically of equal size across the adult life span.
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Larsson, M., Nyberg, L., Bäckman, L. et al. Effects on Episodic Memory of Stimulus Richness, Intention to Learn, and Extra-Study Repetition: Similar Profiles Across the Adult Life Span. Journal of Adult Development 10, 67–73 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022497230520
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022497230520