Abstract
Effects of context on the perception of, and incidental memory for, real-world objects have predominantly been investigated in younger individuals, under conditions involving a single static viewpoint. We examined the effects of prior object context and object familiarity on both older and younger adults’ incidental memory for real objects encountered while they traversed a conference room. Recognition memory for context-typical and context-atypical objects was compared with a third group of unfamiliar objects that were not readily named and that had no strongly associated context. Both older and younger adults demonstrated a typicality effect, showing significantly lower 2-alternative-forced-choice recognition of context-typical than context-atypical objects; for these objects, the recognition of older adults either significantly exceeded, or numerically surpassed, that of younger adults. Testing-awareness elevated recognition but did not interact with age or with object type. Older adults showed significantly higher recognition for context-atypical objects than for unfamiliar objects that had no prior strongly associated context. The observation of a typicality effect in both age groups is consistent with preserved semantic schemata processing in aging. The incidental recognition advantage of older over younger adults for the context-typical and context-atypical objects may reflect aging-related differences in goal-related processing, with older adults under comparatively more novel circumstances being more likely to direct their attention to the external environment, or age-related differences in top-down effortful distraction regulation, with older individuals’ attention more readily captured by salient objects in the environment. Older adults’ reduced recognition of unfamiliar objects compared to context-atypical objects may reflect possible age differences in contextually driven expectancy violations. The latter finding underscores the theoretical and methodological value of including a third type of objects–that are comparatively neutral with respect to their contextual associations–to help differentiate between contextual integration effects (for schema-consistent objects) and expectancy violations (for schema-inconsistent objects).
Highlights
In the real world, objects are always located within a spatial context, and generally appear with other objects
The current study examined the recognition memory of younger and older adults for objects that they were incidentally exposed to while en route to a testing room
We found that older adults showed significantly above-chance levels of incidental recognition for both the context-atypical and the unfamiliar objects but they did not recognize context-typical objects at above the 50% expected on the basis of chance responding
Summary
Objects are always located within a spatial context, and generally appear with other objects. With comparatively few exceptions [4,5,6] investigations have most often involved the viewing of 2-D or computerized images of objects or scenes– situations that do not fully reflect the challenges of vision in the real world. Examining performance under natural viewing conditions, including during realistic movements through space [7], [8], is important for understanding incidental perception and learning. The current study examined the recognition memory of younger and older adults for objects that they were incidentally exposed to while en route to a testing room. We evaluated recognition memory for three types of objects: context-typical objects, context-atypical objects, and novel unfamiliar objects with no known associated context
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