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Sketchpad Series 

Exploring age-related changes in schema-based memory precision

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

Anna Lawrance¹ (annalawrance@uvic.ca), Yanxin Xu¹, Olivia Leyden¹, Jordana Wynn¹, Tarek Amer¹; ¹University of Victoria, Canada

Evidence indicates that older adults exhibit a greater reliance on prior knowledge during memory formation, such that age differences in memory are minimized when knowledge is task relevant. Yet, how prior knowledge biases memory representations and precision in aging remains poorly understood. The present study aims to explore this question by manipulating the congruence of a study item’s visual appearance with prior knowledge. Young and older adults will study everyday objects (e.g., a tomato) presented with colour overlays that are congruent (e.g., red), incongruent (e.g., blue), or nearly congruent (e.g., orange) with prior knowledge. Memory will be assessed through a colour retrieval task in which participants recall each object’s colour by selecting it from a colour wheel. Memory precision / distortion will be evaluated by comparing studied and retrieved hues, with shifts toward congruent colours in nearly congruent and incongruent conditions indicating reliance on prior knowledge. We predict larger age differences in the near-congruent and incongruent conditions, with older adults showing a bias toward congruency particularly in the near-congruent condition. This would suggest that prior knowledge can distort memory representations in older adults when new information only partially aligns with existing knowledge.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging