No Inhibitory Deficit in Older Adults' Episodic Memory

@article{Aslan2007NoID,
  title={No Inhibitory Deficit in Older Adults' Episodic Memory},
  author={Alp Aslan and Karl-Heinz T. B{\"a}uml and Bernhard Past{\"o}tter},
  journal={Psychological Science},
  year={2007},
  volume={18},
  pages={72 - 78}
}
Selectively retrieving a subset of previously studied material can cause forgetting of the unpracticed material. Such retrieval-induced forgetting is attributed to an inhibitory mechanism recruited to resolve interference among competing items. According to the inhibition-deficit hypothesis, older people experience a specific decline in inhibitory function and thus should show reduced retrieval-induced forgetting. However, the results of the two experiments reported here show the same amount of… 
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psychologie.uni-regensburg.de
90 Citations
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23
Methods Citations
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This work replicated the prior work by finding reliable RIF in young-old participants (60-75 years), but additionally found RIF to decline with increasing age and to be inefficient in old- old participants (above 75 years).
Retrieval-Induced Forgetting and Executive Control
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Results strongly suggest that inhibition involved in RIF is the result of executive-control processes.
Memory inhibition, aging, and the executive deficit hypothesis.
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The results indicate that memory inhibition in older adults also depends on executive control, which is more easily disrupted by a secondary task in older than in young adults, which sheds some light into the discussion regarding the effect of dual tasking on retrieval.
Part-List Cuing Effects in Younger and Older Adults’ Episodic Recall
TLDR
The results are consistent with the proposal that older adults show intact inhibition and blocking of competing information, but reduced capability for episodic context reactivation.
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TLDR
The present findings give support to an inhibitory control account of retrieval-induced forgetting and are in accord with the view that prefrontal regions play an important role in the selection and maintenance of relevant memory representations at the expense of those currently irrelevant.
Episodic Memory and Age-Related Deficits in Inhibitory Effectiveness
TLDR
The findings suggest that inhibitory functioning remains intact in older adults under the age of 70 years, however, a misleading impression can be formed of inhibitory effectiveness in adults over the Age of 70 when memory tests do not exclude the use of noninhibitory processes, such as output interference.
Selective voluntary forgetting in young and older adults.
TLDR
Evidence is shown of older adults' impoverished capacity to voluntarily forget episodic memories, although only when the task requires selective forgetting, to suggest that sensitiveness to detect adult-age differences in cognitive control may strongly depend on the executive-control demands imposed by tasks.
Selective voluntary forgetting in young and young-old adults
Aging is thought to involve a decline in executive-control capacities, although evidence regarding this claim is not always clear. Thus, although studies exist that suggest impoverished inhibitory…
Listwise directed forgetting is present in young-old adults, but is absent in old-old adults.
TLDR
The results indicate that listwise DF is a late-declining capability, suggesting a deficit in very old adults' episodic memory control.
The role of warnings in younger and older adults’ retrieval-induced forgetting
TLDR
It is indicated that both younger and older adults are susceptible to retrieval-induced forgetting and that raising awareness of the phenomenon increases rather than decreases forgetting rates.
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