Abstract
The present study examined younger and older adults' ability to improve their source memory for different types of sources through imaginal and verbal (sentence) mediators. Younger (18–29 years) and older (60–75 years) adults' strategy use and source memory for either text-type (bold vs italic) or person (woman vs man) sources was assessed; strategy use was either spontaneous or the generation of imaginal mediators was instructed before encoding. Younger and older adults did not differ in spontaneous use of mediator-based strategies; however, older adults generated more images but fewer verbal mediators than younger adults. Participants were able to increase mediator generation when instructed to, resulting in substantial increases in both item and source memory for the instructed conditions in both age groups. Use of verbal mediators was more likely for the more concrete person sources for which source memory was generally better. Importantly, these objective benefits of mediator-based strategies translated into subjective benefits for both younger and older adults: Increased use of either mediator type was correlated with lower experienced task difficulty; the instructions to use imaginal mediators resulted in a significant decrease in difficulty ratings on the group level. Participants were generally able to monitor mediator benefits to both item and source memory and accurately judged mediator strategies (especially imagery) as more effective than repetition; older adults, however, rated all strategies as less effective than younger adults. Implications of these findings, especially for neuropsychological studies on source monitoring, are discussed.
Highlights
IntroductionRemembering the source of information (i.e., when, where, how and from whom information was originally learned; Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993) is important in many situations
Remembering the source of information is important in many situations
Our results show that instructions to use imaginal mediators improve source memory by about 10% independent of participant age and source type
Summary
Remembering the source of information (i.e., when, where, how and from whom information was originally learned; Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993) is important in many situations. Merely knowing that one of your friends is allergic to peanuts is not very helpful. You must remember which friend told you about their allergic reactions to avoid bringing a dish with peanuts to their house. Adults of all ages, but especially older adults, often only know that information was learned previously but cannot remember precise source details (Boywitt, Kuhlmann, & Meiser, 2012; Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996; Kuhlmann & Boywitt, 2016; Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008; Yonelinas, 2002). The present study examines younger and older adults' ability to strategically improve their source memory.
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