How rapidly can we encode the specifics versus the gist of episodic memories? Competing theories have opposing answers, but empirical tests are based primarily on tasks of item memory. Few studies have addressed this question with tasks measuring the binding of event components (e.g., a person and a location), which forms the core of episodic memory. None of these prior studies included older adults, whose episodic memories are less specific in nature. We addressed this critical gap by presenting face-scene pairs (e.g., an old man with a park) at various encoding presentation rates to 80 young (M = 21.83 years) and 86 older (M = 68.62 years) adults. Participants completed associative recognition tests featuring old/intact (e.g., the old man with the same park), similar (e.g., the old man with a different park), and unrelated (e.g., the old man with a kitchen) pairs. Multinomial-processing-tree model analyses revealed that young and older adults encoded each pair's gist representation more rapidly than its specific representation, supporting fuzzy-trace theory. No age-related differences in gist representations were obtained at any presentation rate, but older adults required more time to encode specific representations commensurate with those of younger adults. However, older adults' abilities to retrieve these representations were cue-dependent, as they were more susceptible than younger adults to experiencing vivid false memories of similar lures. These phantom recollections were remediated with further increases in encoding time. Thus, slower speed of encoding partially underlies age-related declines in episodic memory specificity, but retrieval mechanisms also play a role. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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年轻人和老年人编码特定和要点情景记忆表征的时间过程。


我们能够多快地编码情景记忆的细节和要点？相互竞争的理论有相反的答案，但实证测试主要基于项目记忆任务。很少有研究通过测量事件成分（例如，人和地点）的结合的任务来解决这个问题，事件成分构成了情景记忆的核心。这些先前的研究都没有包括老年人，因为他们的情景记忆本质上不太具体。我们通过以不同的编码呈现速率向 80 名年轻人（M = 21.83 岁）和 86 名老年人（M = 68.62 岁）呈现面部场景对（例如，一个老人和一个公园）来解决这一关键差距。参与者完成了联想识别测试，其中包括老年/完整（例如，在同一个公园的老人）、相似（例如，在不同公园的老人）和不相关（例如，在厨房的老人）对。多项处理树模型分析表明，年轻人和老年人对每对主旨表示的编码速度比对具体表示的编码速度更快，这支持了模糊跟踪理论。在任何呈现率下都没有获得与年龄相关的要点表征的差异，但老年人需要更多的时间来编码与年轻人相称的特定表征。然而，老年人检索这些表征的能力取决于线索，因为他们比年轻人更容易经历对类似诱惑的生动错误记忆。这些幻象记忆随着编码时间的进一步增加而得到修复。因此，编码速度减慢部分是与年龄相关的情景记忆特异性下降的原因，但检索机制也发挥了作用。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。