Memory performance of young and old healthy adults in two processing paradigms: Sentence production and sentence construction.
Item
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Title
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Memory performance of young and old healthy adults in two processing paradigms: Sentence production and sentence construction.
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Identifier
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AAI9986386
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identifier
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9986386
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Creator
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Vollaro, Joseph.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Wilma A. Winnick
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Cognitive
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Abstract
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The performance of young and old adults was compared on tasks requiring different types of processing at encoding. The experimental conditions varied in terms of whether or not a generation component was present and in the amount of elaboration provided to the participant. In Experiment 1, sentence production was employed in which participants were shown a target word, and then required to generate a sentence containing the word. Recognition and word fragment completion memory tests were administered following the study tasks to allow for potential dissociations with age groups and or/processing tasks. We expected that the elaborative encoding induced by sentence production would reduce age group differences normally found on explicit memory tests. In Experiment 2, sentence construction was employed in which participants were given a set of scrambled words and asked to make them form a sentence. Sentence construction was used in order to induce many of the same processes as sentence production, but without a generative component.;We predicted that since no generation was required in sentence construction, the normal age-related differences, which are observed in comparisons of explicit memory performance of young and old adults, would be observed. We also predicted that when directly comparing the sentence production and sentence construction, sentence production would result in significantly better memory performance for both age groups.;The results of Experiment 1 were as expected. Sentence production attenuated the differences normally observed in the explicit memory performance of young and old adults. The results of Experiment 2, on the other hand, were contrary to our expectations. While a small difference was observed in the memory performance of young and old adults, this difference was not significant. The results of the direct comparison between sentence production and sentence construction was as expected, with sentence production yielding significantly higher scores than sentence construction. No differences were found on the word-fragment completion tests.;The results of the present study support Craik's production deficiency hypothesis of age-related memory differences. They suggest that when the older adult is guided towards a more active, elaborative processing of target information, the differences normally observed between old and young adults can be attenuated.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
