TY - JOUR PY - 2000// TI - Age-related differences in the use of contextual information in recognition memory: a global matching approach JO - Journals of gerontology. Series B: psychological sciences and social sciences A1 - Bayen, U. J. A1 - Phelps, M. P. A1 - Spaniol, Julia SP - 131 EP - 141 VL - 55 IS - 3 N2 - Age differences in the processing of contextual information were investigated using the Item, associated Context, and Ensemble (ICE) model (K. Murnane, M. P. Phelps, & K. Malmberg, 1999), a general global matching model of recognition memory. In two experiments, young and older adults studied words in environmental contexts and were tested in both the same and different contexts. Patterns of context effects for hit rate, false alarm rate, and d' suggest that older adults process associated context, but have difficulties integrating items and context into an ensemble. Thus, older adults appear to have a specific, rather than a general, deficit in processing contextual information. A deficiency in ensemble processing may be responsible for the prevalent finding that older adults show poorer recognition memory performance than young adults.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1079-5014 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -