Within-category similarity negatively affects associative memory performance in both younger and older adults

Autor: C. M. Carpenter, C. E. Webb, A. A. Overman, N. A. Dennis
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Memory
ISSN: 1464-0686
0965-8211
DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2022.2123524
Popis: Associative memory involves the ability to encode and remember the relationship between individual items. This ability can become diminished when there is a high degree of similarity between stimuli that are being learned. Associative memory errors often stem from the fact that lures include a high degree of item familiarity as well as mnemonic similarity with the original associative episode. The current set of experiments examined how this overlap, in the form of within-category similarity, affects veridical and false retrieval in both younger and older adults. Across three experiments, results suggest that mnemonic overlap between targets and lures is detrimental to the ability to discriminate between highly similar information. Specifically, shared category membership for targets and lures led to increased false associative memories across age groups. These results have implications for scenarios where there is a high degree of overlap between target and lure events and indicate that these types of associative memory distinctions are difficult irrespective of age.
Databáze: OpenAIRE