title: Age differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory updating: evidence from analysis of serial position curves.
abstract: Memory updating is the ability to select and update relevant information and suppress no-longer-relevant data. The few studies in this area, targeting mainly the verbal domain, have investigated and confirmed an age-related decline in working memory updating ability (De Beni & Palladino, 2004; Van der Linden, Bredart, & Beerten, 1994). The present research examines the ability of younger and older adults to update information in verbal and visuo-spatial running memory tasks. Results showed that the participants' performance was higher in the verbal than in the visuo-spatial task. Nonetheless, independently of the task domain, an age-related decline in updating performance was found. Moreover, analysis of serial positions suggested that, in the updating procedure, the participants were not attempting to actively maintain items, preferring to adopt a low-effort, "recency-based" strategy. The use of this type of strategy is more evident in older participants, as shown in both the accuracy performance and the proportion of intrusion errors.
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy. felicia.fiore@unipd.it
authors: Felicia
authors: F
authors: Fiore
authors: Erika
authors: E
authors: Borella
authors: Irene C
authors: IC
authors: Mammarella
authors: Rossana
authors: R
authors: De Beni
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D014796:Visual Perception