Effects of Aging and Attention-Demanding Tasks on False Recognition Induced by Photographs: Differences Between Conceptually and Perceptually Modified Lures

Abstract

Effects of age (young versus elderly) and attention (full attention versus attention-demanding task) on true and false recognition of semantic and perceptual lures were examined in this study. The experimental materials used, similar to those of Schacter et al. (1997, Psychology and Aging, 12, 203–215), consisted of videotapes and photographs, some taken from the videotapes (targets), some not (lures). The main results showed that the elderly recognized fewer targets than younger adults, and that they falsely recognized more lures. Attention-demanding task only increased the false recognition of perceptual lures in the elderly adults. The findings are discussed in the framework of source memory and the fuzzy trace theory, with the elderly people mainly retaining the gist of the encoded script.