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On the contributions of frontoparietal regions to false memory production irrespective of age and memoranda domain.

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Rebecca Wagner¹ (rmw5981@psu.edu), Megan Broderick¹, Nancy Dennis¹; ¹The Pennsylvania State University

False memories occur when novel information is erroneously accepted as having been previously experienced. Work has linked false memory production with heightened recruitment of cognitive control processes, mediated by frontoparietal regions, necessary for evaluating and monitoring internal memory signals relative to a novel stimulus. While false memories are ubiquitous across younger and older adults, older adults typically exhibit higher rates of false memories, irrespective of domain or task. Given these behavioral differences, it is unknown whether the cognitive and neural processes underlying false memories are common across processing domains and age groups. Using fMRI, we examined neural activity underlying false memories produced across two memory tasks – one dependent upon the perceptual processing domain and the other on the semantic processing domain – in a sample of younger and older adults. We conducted whole-brain univariate conjunction analyses to evaluate the overlap in neural activity between the two age groups and domains. Mirroring previous results found in the younger cohort (West, Dubec et al., 2025), results showed that older adults also exhibited overlapping activity within the left inferior parietal cortex, superior medial frontal lobe, and left lateral inferior frontal cortex when producing false memories. These findings replicate and expand on previous work, suggesting that these frontoparietal regions and their associated cognitive processes play a fundamental role in false memory production irrespective of domain and age. This work provides insight into the foundation of false memories and highlights the pervasive contributions of cognitive processes mediated by frontoparietal regions to false memory production.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging