Older Adults Benefit from Symmetry, but Not Semantic Availability, in Visual Working Memory.

Colin J Hamilton,Clelia Rossi-Arnaud,Louise A Brown

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02373

Colin J Hamilton, Clelia Rossi-Arnaud + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02373

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Abstract

Visual working memory exhibits age effects that are amongst the largest observed in the cognitive aging literature. In this research we investigated whether or not older adults can benefit from visual symmetry and semantic availability, as young adults typically do. Visual matrix pattern tasks varied in terms of the perceptual factor of symmetry (Experiment 1), as well as the availability of visual semantics, or long-term memory (LTM; Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, within a visual memory span protocol, four matrix pattern sets were employed with discrete symmetry characteristics; random, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal symmetry. Encoding time was 3 s with a 2 s maintenance interval. The findings indicated a significant difference in span level across age groups for all of the symmetry variants. More importantly, both younger and older adults could take advantage of symmetry in the matrix array in order to significantly improve task performance. In Experiment 2, two visual matrix task sets were used, with visual arrays of either low or high semantic availability (i.e., they contained stimuli with recognizable shapes that allow for LTM support). Encoding duration was 3 s with a 1 s retention interval. Here, the older adult sample was significantly impaired in span performance with both variants of the task. However, only the younger adult participants could take advantage of visual semantics. These findings show that, in the context of overall impairment in individual task performance, older adults remain capable of employing the perceptual cue of symmetry in order to improve visual working memory task performance. However, they appear less able, within this protocol, to recruit visual semantics in order to scaffold performance.

Highlights

Visual Working Memory (VWM) is the ability to maintain and process visual details, such as patterns, orientations, and colors, over the short term
Design The experiment took the form of a cross sectional mixed factorial 2 × 4 design, and investigated the effects of adult age group and symmetry on VWM capacity, as measured by the span level achieved in each task condition
There was no significant interaction between age group and symmetry condition, F(3, 46) = 0.47, p = 0.71, ηp2 = 0.03

Summary

Introduction

Visual Working Memory (VWM) is the ability to maintain and process visual details, such as patterns, orientations, and colors, over the short term (i.e., periods of seconds). There is substantial evidence to indicate that VWM performance demonstrates significant age associated deficits (Smith et al, 1990; Bruyer and Scailquin, 1999; Leonards et al, 2002; Beigneux et al, 2007; Logie and Maylor, 2009; Johnson et al, 2010; Swanson, 2017) It is not yet known precisely why visual working memory is age-sensitive, researchers have recently suggested that older adults’ VWM may have the same capacity as younger adults, but with less precision (Peich et al, 2013; Ko et al, 2014). Performance was compared on experimental variants of two previously validated quantitative, capacity-based measures of VWM, in order to provide further insight into where and why there are age-associated changes in VWM

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