Older adults appear to have problems in mental imagery which seem to influence memory, such as in the recall of concrete words. However, the effects of imagery instruction on old participants’ memory are quite inconsistent (Richardson, 1980; Salthouse, 1992). Two experiments explored the effects of aging on the nature of mentalimages generated from non-related nouns, and their memory. A sample of 234 participants, young (20–22 years) young–old (55–65 years), old (66–75 years) and old–old (>75 years), were recruited from universities and recreation centres. In Experiment 1 participants were required to generate mentalimages and describe them accurately in 40 s. Mentalimages were classified as general, specific-contextual and self-referred. Details were distinguished between relevant, information useful for describing a mentalimage and irrelevant, information which is not pertinent, or useful for describing a mentalimage. A final memory task was proposed. In Experiment 2 evocation and description time was manipulated in order to reduce the production of irrelevant detail: a shorter condition (evocation + description time=20 s) and a longer condition (evocation + description time=40 s). Results show that older adults (1) produce a higher number of general and self-referredimages but a lower number of specificimages; (2) report a greater quantity of irrelevant detail; (3) recall a lower number of items.
When mental images are very detailed: Image generation and inspection as functions of age
DE BENI, ROSSANA
2003
Abstract
Older adults appear to have problems in mental imagery which seem to influence memory, such as in the recall of concrete words. However, the effects of imagery instruction on old participants’ memory are quite inconsistent (Richardson, 1980; Salthouse, 1992). Two experiments explored the effects of aging on the nature of mentalimages generated from non-related nouns, and their memory. A sample of 234 participants, young (20–22 years) young–old (55–65 years), old (66–75 years) and old–old (>75 years), were recruited from universities and recreation centres. In Experiment 1 participants were required to generate mentalimages and describe them accurately in 40 s. Mentalimages were classified as general, specific-contextual and self-referred. Details were distinguished between relevant, information useful for describing a mentalimage and irrelevant, information which is not pertinent, or useful for describing a mentalimage. A final memory task was proposed. In Experiment 2 evocation and description time was manipulated in order to reduce the production of irrelevant detail: a shorter condition (evocation + description time=20 s) and a longer condition (evocation + description time=40 s). Results show that older adults (1) produce a higher number of general and self-referredimages but a lower number of specificimages; (2) report a greater quantity of irrelevant detail; (3) recall a lower number of items.
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