Aging and fluency-based illusions in recognition memory

We examined age-related differences in susceptibility to fluency-based memory illusions. The results from 2 experiments, in which 2 different methods were used to enhance the fluency of recognition test items, revealed that older and young adults did not differ significantly in terms of their overal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychology and aging Vol. 24; no. 3; p. 595
Main Authors Thapar, Anjali, Westerman, Deanne L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.09.2009
Subjects
Aged
Aging - psychology
Attention
Concept Formation
Cues
Culture
Decision Making
Humans
Illusions
Memory, Short-Term
Middle Aged
Paired-Associate Learning
Reading
Recognition, Psychology
Repression, Psychology
Speech Perception
Verbal Learning
Young Adult
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Summary:We examined age-related differences in susceptibility to fluency-based memory illusions. The results from 2 experiments, in which 2 different methods were used to enhance the fluency of recognition test items, revealed that older and young adults did not differ significantly in terms of their overall susceptibility to this type of memory illusion. Older and young adults were also similar in that perceptual fluency did not influence recognition memory responses when there was a mismatch in the sensory modality of the study and test phases. Likewise, a more conceptual fluency manipulation influenced recognition memory responses in both older and young adults regardless of the match in modality. Overall, the results indicate that older adults may not be more vulnerable than young adults to fluency-based illusions of recognition memory. Moreover, young and older adults appear to be comparable in their sensitivity to factors that modulate the influence of fluency on recognition decisions.
ISSN:0882-7974
DOI:10.1037/a0016575