Ageing and the group-reference effect in memory.

The present study examines age differences in the memory benefits from group-referncing. While prior work establishes that the memory performance of younger and older adults similarly benefits from relating information to the self, this study assessed whether those benefits extend to referencing a meaningful group membership. Young and older adult participants encoded trait words by judging whether each word describes themselves, describes their group membership (selected for each age group), or is familiar. After a retention interval, participants completed a surprise recognition memory test. The results indicate that group-referencing increased recognition memory performance compared to the familiarity judgements for both young and older groups. However, the group-reference benefit is limited, emerging as smaller than the benefit from self-referencing. These results challenge previous findings of equivalent benefits for group-referencing and self-referencing, suggesting that such effects may not prevail under all conditions, including for older adults. The findings also highlight the need to examine the mechanisms of group-referencing that can lead to variability in the group-reference effect.

Source Memory for Self and Other in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment due to Alzheimer's Disease.

OBJECTIVES: The present study examined the role of enactment in source memory in a cognitively impaired population. As seen in healthy older adults, it was predicted that source memory in people with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (MCI-AD) would benefit from the self-reference aspect of enactment. METHOD: Seventeen participants with MCI-AD and 18 controls worked in small groups to pack a picnic basket and suitcase and were later tested for their source memory for each item. RESULTS: For item memory, self-referencing improved corrected recognition scores for both MCI-AD and control participants. The MCI-AD group did not demonstrate the same benefit as controls in correct source memory for self-related items. However, those with MCI-AD were relatively less likely to misattribute new items to the self and more likely to misattribute new items to others when committing errors, compared with controls. DISCUSSION: The enactment effect and self-referencing did not enhance accurate source memory more than other referencing for patients with MCI-AD. However, people with MCI-AD benefited in item memory and source memory, being less likely to falsely claim new items as their own, indicating some self-reference benefit occurs for people with MCI-AD.

A memory advantage for property.

People's access to resources depends on their status as the owner of particular items. To respect property, people need to remember who owns which objects. We test the hypothesis that people possess enhanced memory for ownership relations compared to unrelated objects. Participants viewed a sequence of 10 person-object pairs before completing a surprise associative memory test in which they matched each person with the previously paired object. We varied the description of the person-object pairs in the instructions. Across three experiments, participants showed better recall when the person was described as the owner of the object compared to being unrelated. Furthermore, memory for property was better than a physical relation (bumping), whereas it did not differ from mental relations (wanting and thinking). These patterns were observed both for memory of items (Experiments 1 and 2) and perceptual details (Experiment 3). We discuss implications for how people remember other people's property.

Self-referencing and false memory in mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE: The present study explored the role of self-referencing on false alarm rates among people with mild cognitive impairment suggestive of the early signs of the Alzheimer's disease pathophysiologic process (MCI-AD). Given that people with MCI-AD demonstrate higher rates of false alarms and that false alarms have been shown to increase for self-relevant information, it was predicted that people with MCI-AD would experience a disproportionate increase in memory errors for highly self-related information. METHOD: Patients with a diagnosis of MCI-AD (n = 23) and healthy control participants (n = 27) rated words for self-descriptiveness or commonness and completed a surprise recognition test. RESULTS: Contrary to expectations, results indicated that people with MCI-AD were at no greater risk for false alarms than were control participants as a function of self-descriptiveness, relative to a control condition. Despite the MCI-ADs' greater bias to say "yes" in the self condition, increasing self-descriptiveness did not lead to higher false alarm rates and did not impair performance in the self condition relative to commonness judgments. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore, although people with MCI-AD may be more susceptible to memory errors, they are at no greater risk of self-related errors than healthy control participants.

False memory in aging resulting from self-referential processing.

OBJECTIVES: Referencing the self is known to enhance accurate memory, but less is known about how the strategy affects false memory, particularly for highly self-relevant information. Because older adults are more prone to false memories, we tested whether self-referencing increased false memories with age. METHOD: In 2 studies, older and younger adults rated adjectives for self-descriptiveness and later completed a surprise recognition test comprised of words rated previously for self-descriptiveness and novel lure words. Lure words were subsequently rated for self-descriptiveness in order to assess the impact of self-relevance on false memory. Study 2 introduced commonness judgments as a control condition, such that participants completed a recognition test on adjectives rated for commonness in addition to adjectives in the self-descriptiveness condition. RESULTS: Across both studies, findings indicate an increased response bias to self-referencing that increased hit rates for both older and younger adults but also increased false alarms as information became more self-descriptive, particularly for older adults. DISCUSSION: Although the present study supports previous literature showing a boost in memory for self-referenced information, the increase in false alarms, especially in older adults, highlights the potential for memory errors, particularly for information that is strongly related to the self.

Source memory for action in young and older adults: self vs. close or unknown others.

The present study examines source memory for actions (e.g., placing items in a suitcase). For both young and older adult participants, source memory for actions performed by the self was better than memory for actions performed by either a known (close) or unknown other. In addition, neither young nor older adults were more likely to confuse self with close others than with unknown others. Results suggest an advantage in source memory for actions performed by the self compared to others, possibly associated with sensorimotor cues that are relatively preserved in aging.