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Schema-related memory effects are differentially modulated by age and memory performance

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Sophie L. O'Reilly¹ (), Arianna Moccia¹, Beth Jefferies¹, Aidan J. Horner¹; ¹University of York

The effect of schema-congruence on memory has been largely studied in younger adults (YA), where events that are schema-congruent or schema-incongruent are often better remembered than schema-neutral events. How this relationship changes in ageing is less well studied. Across two experiments (E1: N=78; E2: N=156), we investigated how schema-related memory effects are modulated by both participant age and the delay between encoding and retrieval. Participants encoded ‘events’ comprising a famous person, an object and a location. Schema-congruence was manipulated based on the profession of the famous person (e.g. Adele-Stage-Microphone would be a congruent event). Memory for half of the events was tested immediately and the other half following a delay (E1: 48-hour; E2: 12-hour). Collapsing across experiments, we saw effects of congruency that differed as a function of age and overall memory performance. Low performers showed a congruence advantage, with greater performance in the congruent condition than the neutral and incongruent condition, regardless of age. High-performing YAs showed an incongruence advantage, with greater performance in the incongruent condition than the neutral or congruent condition, however in low-performing older adults (OA) no effects of congruency were seen. Our results show that congruence benefits memory when overall episodic memory performance is low, regardless of age. Incongruence benefits memory when overall performance is high, but only in YAs. This latter finding supports the proposal that schematic prediction error enhances memory for incongruent events, and suggests that these prediction error signals are disrupted in OAs even when episodic memory performance is relatively preserved.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic