Psychology and Aging最新文献

{"title":"Age-related changes in memory for gist and details: New perspectives on the representational quality of episodic memory.","authors":"Nathaniel R Greene, Alan Castel, Moshe Naveh-Benjamin","doi":"10.1037/pag0001039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001039","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Substantial heterogeneity in adult age-related declines in episodic memory within and across tasks and individuals has prompted extensive theoretical debate about the source of these variations. Today, many theories assume that age-related changes in the representational fidelity of memory and the degree to which a test demands the retrieval of specific details of past experiences underlie much of this variability. This special issue of <i>Psychology and Aging</i> presents 19 contributions from researchers from around the world that together aim to enrich our understanding of the representational basis of age-related memory change. These contributions explore several interrelated themes related to measuring, predicting, and, at times, counteracting age-related declines in memory specificity while extending representational accounts to new tasks, more naturalistic contexts, and populations spanning the adult lifespan as well as individuals with neurocognitive impairment. The breadth of coverage spans multiple research domains with rich histories in the field of cognitive aging, including recognition memory, autobiographical memory, event memory, decision making, comprehension, and computational modeling. Collectively, the diversity of questions posed by the articles and the varied methods they advance to addressing them highlight the value of integrating findings across different research traditions to develop a more unified framework for studying age-related changes in memory specificity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":"41 7","pages":"777-785"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149301304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correction to \"Systematically reducing schematic information during encoding differentially impacts true and false memory at retrieval in younger and older adults\" by Becker et al. (2026).","authors":"","doi":"10.1037/pag0001055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001055","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reports an error in \"Systematically reducing schematic information during encoding differentially impacts true and false memory at retrieval in younger and older adults\" by Alexa Becker, Rebecca L. Wagner and Nancy A. Dennis (<i>Psychology and Aging</i>, Advanced Online Publication, Jul 23, 2026, np; see record 2028-01807-001). Jordan Chamberlain was missing from the author list in the submitted manuscript. The authorship has been corrected with the agreement of all authors. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2028-01807-001.) Schemas are abstract representations that aid memory performance by providing a structured context through which memories can be both encoded and retrieved. Older adults have been shown to particularly benefit from schema support as a memory aid. Yet, while helpful to true memory for schematic information, reliance on schemas has also been shown to lead to high rates of false memories for novel yet schematically related information, as well as diminished memory for information that falls outside of an active schema. The current research sought to examine how systematically manipulating naturalistic contextualization as well as the density of schematic information present during encoding may alter subsequent true and false memory for both schematic and nonschematic information. To examine this, we systematically altered the ratio of schematic-to-nonschematic information present during encoding across four conditions in a sample of healthy younger and older adults. Overall, both younger and older adults responded more accurately to schematic compared to nonschematic targets, replicating past work highlighting the benefit of schemas to memory performance. Results also showed that systematically reducing the amount of schematic information present at encoding improved memory discriminability. Specifically, as there was less schematic information present at encoding, false alarms to schematic lures decreased, and hits to nonschematic targets increased. Additionally, when items were decontextualized from a naturalistic scene, false alarms to nonschematic lures decreased. Hits to schematic targets were equitable across conditions. Taken together, the results demonstrate that while schemas maintain a strong influence on memory performance across the lifespan, this effect can be manipulated with reduced schematic information. Such findings reveal the extent to which the pervasive influence of schemas on memory can be swayed by manipulating the amount of schematic information present during encoding and provide critical knowledge for the optimal usage of schemas as a memory support across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":"41 7","pages":"1064"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149301320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Different object features shape mnemonic discrimination in younger and older adults.","authors":"Zsuzsanna Nemecz, Alex Ilyés, Lili Kerekes, Hunor Kis, Markus Werkle-Bergner, Attila Keresztes","doi":"10.1037/pag0001021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001021","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to discriminate experiences in memory is an important indicator of cognitive health in older age and a sensitive marker of hippocampal integrity. Measures of mnemonic discrimination, such as the mnemonic similarity task, have the potential to become early diagnostic tools of Alzheimer's dementia. It is thus important to understand how hippocampus-dependent memory functions interact with nonmnemonic processes to determine mnemonic discrimination performance. In this study, we investigate which features contribute to mnemonic discrimination in younger and older age. First, we found in a sample of younger (n = 93, 20-30 years) and older adults (n = 103, 65-82 years) that age impacted performance on the mnemonic similarity task above and beyond the effect of perceptual discrimination of novel 2D configurative objects. Next, in two experiments, we acquired similarity and feature difference ratings for the mnemonic similarity task lures from younger (n = 25 and n = 47, 19-37 years) and older (n = 25 and n = 47, 65-79 years) adults. Using random forest regression and representational similarity analysis, we found that the two groups exhibited unique similarity rating patterns. Finally, enriching our memory data with the feature information, we showed, on the trial level, that mnemonic decisions of older and younger adults are affected by distinct object features. Altogether, these results provide evidence that older adults perceive the differences in lure images distinctively and they may rely on different levels of representations for mnemonic discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":"41 7","pages":"821-839"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149301330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aging and sustained attention: The role of inhibitory control and mind-wandering.","authors":"Hannah G Thomas, Lamis N El-Sabaa, Emily E Davis, Matthew S Price, Karen L Campbell","doi":"10.1037/pag0001034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001034","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sustained attention is the ability to maintain focus on a task over time. However, sustained attention tasks often engage other cognitive processes such as response inhibition. Despite these inhibitory demands and age differences in inhibitory control, older adults often outperform young adults on sustained attention tasks. The present study aimed to further our understanding of the relationship between sustained attention and inhibitory control and how this is affected by age. To this end, we used two versions of the Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task, which typically includes gradual transitions between frequent \"go\" stimuli and infrequent \"no-go\" stimuli. We manipulated inhibitory demands by including a 90% go condition, which encourages habitual responding, and a 10% go condition, which reduces inhibitory demands. We also interspersed mind-wandering probes and included separate measures of inhibitory control (stop-signal and go/no-go tasks) to relate to Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task performance. Both older and younger adults showed better sustained attention when inhibitory demands were minimized, but older adults outperformed younger adults in both conditions, showing higher A' scores and less reaction time variability. Younger adults also showed more vigilance decline over time and reported more mind-wandering. Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task performance correlated with both stop-signal and go/no-go tasks, indicating a role for individual differences in response inhibition. These findings suggest that sustained attention is not only preserved but can also be superior in older adults. Maintained vigilance may help offset age-related declines in response inhibition and processing speed, supporting everyday functions such as driving, at least over relatively short periods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149301384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Age-related differences in speech production: Evidence from graph analyses.","authors":"Kathryn Walters, Abigail L Cosgrove, Janaina Weissheimer, Michele T Diaz","doi":"10.1037/pag0001038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001038","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Storytelling is a vital aspect of language processing requiring successful integration of characters, events, and actions. Cohesive stories include the necessary information to transition between utterances and convey the overall gist. Although older adults often produce more off-topic speech, it is unclear how age affects narrative organization across discourse contexts. Additionally, broader cognitive declines in aging, like differences in executive function, may contribute to discourse. The present study examined discourse using computational speech graph analyses in 268 healthy adults aged 20-81 years old. Participants completed two speaking tasks differing in contextual support: a picture book description and an open-ended speech prompt. Speech graphs quantified connectedness by modeling words as nodes and their sequential relationships as edges, capturing local and longer range aspects of discourse. Results indicated that age was correlated with increased repetition and less connected speech. There was also a main effect of task where the picture book task elicited denser, more interconnected speech with greater reintegration across the narrative, while the open-ended prompt elicited speech that was more locally repetitive with fewer links between earlier and later portions of the narrative. Critically, age-related differences in connectedness were most evident in the open-ended prompt and were independent of executive function, suggesting a gradual shift toward more locally constrained speech in later adulthood, particularly when speech must be generated and organized without external support. Importantly, graph-based measures were sensitive to these subtle organizational shifts, highlighting their potential to complement established discourse metrics and deepen our understanding of speech across adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149301360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Older adults' engagement with young children is associated with reduced mortality.","authors":"Claire M Growney, Laura L Carstensen","doi":"10.1037/pag0001040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001040","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prior research suggests that interactions with young children confer emotional and cognitive benefits to older adults. In the present study, we examine whether such activities are associated with reduced mortality. Using data from 6,775 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, we examined the relationships of intergenerational engagement in 2010, operationalized as reported frequency of activities with familial and nonfamilial children, to survival as of 2022. Cox proportional hazard model analyses indicated that more frequent intergenerational activity was related to survival over the 12-year period; the effect held after accounting for demographic background variables and physical health as well as overall levels of social activity. As expected, the effect was stronger among older than younger participants, but did not vary by grandparent status. Findings suggest that engaging with younger generations, familial or otherwise, may contribute to longevity, highlighting the potential value of intergenerational experiences across a wide range of social contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149275653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prosociality across adulthood: Social discounting and donations in the United States and China.","authors":"Yi Lu, Hongmei Lin, Corinna E Löckenhoff, Xin Zhang, Shuyao Liao, Helene H Fung","doi":"10.1037/pag0001041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001041","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social discounting refers to the decline in generosity as the perceived social distance to another person increases. Despite growing interest in age differences in prosocial behavior, little is known about how people's generosity and social discounting vary across adulthood under different cultural contexts. This study examined age-related differences in social discounting and charitable giving in two independently preregistered adult lifespan samples from the United States (<i>n</i> = 484) and China (<i>n</i> = 555). Participants completed a social discounting task (choosing between keeping money vs. giving it to another person at varying social distances), a charitable giving measure (keeping money vs. donating to their favorite charity), and a horizontal-vertical individualism-collectivism scale assessing cultural values. Regression models examined the effects of age and cultural values while controlling for country, collection mode, and demographic variables. Advanced age was associated with lower social discounting and more charitable donations, although no age differences were found in the total amounts given across social distances. After controlling for cultural values and demographics, these age effects remained robust only for social discounting. Exploratory findings revealed that, compared with Chinese participants, U.S. participants discounted less and donated more to charities even after adjusting for cultural values and demographics. Consistent with prior findings, higher horizontal collectivism was associated with lower social discounting, higher overall generosity, and greater donation to charities, whereas higher vertical individualism was linked to lower overall generosity and charitable giving. Findings advance the understanding of how prosociality and social discounting unfold across adulthood and highlight the role of cultural values. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Purpose but not future time perspective predicts momentary affective well-being.","authors":"Gabrielle N Pfund, Mathias Allemand, Patrick L Hill, Minxia Luo, Christina Röcke","doi":"10.1037/pag0001027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that a primary reason older adults have better affective well-being is due to their focus on goals and motives that prioritize their emotional experiences due to a more limited future time perspective (FTP) toward the end of life. There is mixed evidence on whether daily FTP is tied to daily affect and whether this effect remains above and beyond sense of purpose. The present study uses ecological momentary assessment data from 145 older adults residing in Zurich, Switzerland (age: <i>M</i> = 73.33, <i>SD</i> = 5.52, range = 65-91; 48% men, 52% women; all White). Participants completed up to seven momentary surveys throughout the day over 15 days; they reported on purpose at baseline, FTP every evening, and affect throughout the day. Multilevel models indicated that daily FTP was not associated with positive or negative affect at the between- or within-person level, though there were individual differences in these within-person associations. Higher dispositional sense of purpose predicted higher average positive affect and lower average negative affect. These findings highlight that the connection between short-term changes in daily FTP may not matter for many older adults' affective well-being, but older adults' dispositional sense of purpose does. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149185282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Can motivational interventions promote older adults' empathic accuracy? Two experimental studies.","authors":"Jenny Jaquet, Alissa von Großmann, Antje Rauers, Michaela Riediger","doi":"10.1037/pag0001019","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Correctly inferring others' inner states (empathic accuracy) is considered crucial for social adjustment. Older adults' empathic accuracy differs across situations, which has been attributed to situational differences in their empathic motivation. We hypothesized that framing empathic accuracy as self-relevant would increase older adults' empathic motivation and, consequently, their empathic accuracy. To test these notions, we conducted two experimental studies. In Study 1, a total of 174 older adults participated online. We compared a control condition with two brief interventions emphasizing the importance of empathic accuracy for either life management or social relationships. Participants watched videotaped target persons reporting emotional experiences and judged their feelings. In Study 2, a total of 112 older adults engaged in videotaped dyadic conversations. This enabled testing whether boosting empathizers' motivation would also affect target-related variables. The intervention emphasized the importance of empathic accuracy for well-being and for completing subsequent study tasks. Participants watched their videotaped conversation. Targets rated their own feelings during the conversation. Empathizers rated the target's feelings. Across both studies, empathic accuracy was operationalized as the correlation between the empathizer's judgment and the target's self-rated feelings. Empathizers' empathic and targets' expressive motivation were assessed multimethodically using behavioral indicators and self- or other reports. In both studies, there were no significant effects of the interventions on empathic motivation and accuracy. Links between indicators of empathic motivation suggest a shared underlying construct, which, however, could not explain variations in empathic accuracy. We discuss the challenge of enhancing empathic accuracy through brief interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149076158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Picture versus word: Moderator effects on age-related differences in false memories depend on stimulus type.","authors":"Minyu Chang, Nathaniel R Greene, Charles Brainerd, Ciaran Williams, Xiomara Diosdado, Shanze Kirmani","doi":"10.1037/pag0001032","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001032","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A recent meta-analysis by Huan et al. (2026) revealed that the aging increase in false memory was significantly influenced by some moderators (e.g., stimulus type, paradigm, and retention interval) but not others (e.g., test format and list length). The present study reanalyzed the data reported by Huan et al. using a series of new moderator analyses, which were motivated by the facts that some moderator effects reported by Huan et al. are (a) inconsistent with the prior literature and (b) potentially confounded with stimulus type (pictures vs. words). Whereas the earlier meta-analysis relied on univariate meta-regressions, we conducted multivariable meta-regressions and subgroup analyses to reexamine the moderators of interest after controlling for stimulus type. Our results showed that the effects of multiple moderators depend on stimulus type: The moderating effects of paradigm and retention interval were nonsignificant when stimulus type was controlled, whereas the moderating effects of test format and list length were significant with word stimuli but not with picture stimuli. These findings highlight the importance of treating picture and word stimuli differently when studying developmental trends in false memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149076240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}