title: Antimnemonic effects of schemas in young and older adults.
abstract: Schema-consistent material that is aligned with an individual's knowledge and experience is typically more memorable than abstract material. This effect is often more extreme in older adults and schema use can alleviate age deficits in memory. In three experiments, young and older adults completed memory tasks where the availability of schematic information was manipulated. Specifying nonobvious relations between to-be-remembered word pairs paradoxically hindered memory (Experiment 1). Highlighting relations within mixed lists of related and unrelated word pairs had no effect on memory for those pairs (Experiment 2). This occurred even though related word pairs were recalled better than unrelated word pairs, particularly for older adults. Revealing a schematic context in a memory task with abstract image segments also hindered memory performance, particularly for older adults (Experiment 3). The data show that processing schematic information can come with costs that offset mnemonic benefits associated with schema-consistent stimuli.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Warwick , Coventry , UK.
authors.forename: Stephen P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Badham
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Warwick , Coventry , UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Maylor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001245:Association Learning; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: aging; associative memory; cued recall; picture recognition; schemas