Age Differences in the Implementation of Knowledge and Experience to Support Memory

Over the last century, improvements in standards of living and developments in medicine have resulted in more individuals reaching old age and life expectancy has risen significantly. This has led to older adults making up an increasing proportion of society and the current trend is likely to continue. Therefore, tackling issues related to ageing has become a major focus for medical practitioners, scientists, policy makers and economists.

Ageing not only results in a decline in physical abilities but also in cognitive abilities. The most widespread and salient age-related cognitive decline is a reduction in memory ability. In recent research in our laboratory, we have focussed on a factor that seems to alleviate age deficits in memory: When information that needs to be remembered is consistent with an individuals' knowledge and experience, it is easier to remember than abstract information and older adults appear to benefit from this effect more than do young adults. For example, when participants were asked to remember an association between two words, age differences in memory performance were smaller for related word pairs like article-book or fatigue-sleep compared to unrelated word pairs like article-lapel or fatigue-glass. This means that it may be possible to improve memory for all age groups, but particularly for older adults, by encouraging individuals to use knowledge and information that they are familiar with to support memory processes.

The proposed project aims to establish how knowledge and experience can support different memory processes. This will be achieved by investigating how people can use knowledge about the world to: 1. Distinguish between different information in memory during retrieval. 2. Improve the chances of thinking in the same way when encoding information and when retrieving information. 3. Reduce the amount of effort required to successfully encode and retrieve information.

Increasing our understanding of how knowledge and experience can support memory may lead to the development of new methods for alleviating age-related memory deficits. This would allow older adults with memory difficulties to retain independence for longer periods of time before requiring care. With the cost of full-time care reaching tens of thousands of pounds a year, extending independence even by just a few months will notably improve the financial circumstances for older individuals, their families and the state.

The primary beneficiaries of this research will be academics working in the field of cognitive science. The main focus of the project is to highlight how pre-existing knowledge (familiarity) is used by individuals in memory tasks. The outcome will be to draw distinctions between the processing of familiar information and novel information. Processing of familiar and novel information occurs almost continuously in everyday life and therefore has widespread implications across many areas of psychology, neuroscience, gerontology and medicine. The key aim of the project is to provide foundation and guidance to future research by identifying fundamental aspects of cognition.

The most widespread impact of this research will be based on insights gained into methods for alleviating age deficits in memory. Through the research we will learn more about how pre-existing knowledge can reduce age deficits in memory. This information will be valuable to academics and medical practitioners seeking to extend the independence of older adults with declining mental health caused by dementia. For example, one possible implementation of pre-existing knowledge may be for older adults to establish a routine for their daily activities such as taking medication, maintaining hygiene, preparing meals, and so on. The established routine will be a pre-existing concept and may support memory for completing individual daily tasks. Even if such techniques only improve older adults' memory slightly, they may allow individuals to retain independence for an extra few months into the onset of dementia. This will have a large, positive financial impact on individuals and the state and should improve the happiness and quality of life for older adults for this extra period of time.