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presentation_ovalle-fresa_Teap_2021
Conference presentation

Drawing as an encoding tool to enhance item and associative memory: distinctive benefits in younger and older adults : 63rd Conference of Experimental Psychologists, online / Ulm, Germany, 2021

  • 2021
Associative Memory
Drawing
Strategy
Ageing
English Episodic memory decline is disproportionately large in healthy ageing. It is mainly based on difficulties to create and remember associations, but also on difficulties to spontaneously use appropriate strategies. A well-known encoding strategy to enhance associative memory also in older adults is to create mental images relating the single items of an association. Recent studies showed a beneficial effect of such imagery processes involved in drawing during encoding on memory for single items – in younger and older adults. To date, no study investigated if drawing also enhances associative memory. We thus aimed to investigate if drawing during encoding enhances associative memory and if there were distinctive effects in younger and older adults. We tested 29 younger and 29 older healthy adults in a recognition memory task with word-pairs. The paradigm allowed to distinguish between item memory and associative memory. We further manipulated the encoding tool (within participants): in the drawing condition, participants had to draw an image integrating both words of each pair. In the writing condition, participants had to repeatedly write the words of each pair. Results revealed that younger adults benefitted from drawing during encoding in item and associative memory. However, older adults tendentially benefitted in item, but not in associative memory. We thus extended previous findings showing benefits of drawing on item memory to associative memory in younger adults. Further investigating the distinctive impact of drawing on associative memory between age groups will provide important insight on underlying mechanisms involved in encoding strategy-use of older adults.
Language
  • English
License
CC BY
Identifiers
  • ARK ark:/51647/srd1322214
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/51647/srd1322214
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