title: Aging, source memory, and the experience of "remembering".
abstract: In a previous study, we found source memory for perceptual features to differentiate between younger but not older adults' reports of recollective ("remember"; R) and "know" (K) experiences. In two experiments with younger (17-30 years) and older (64-81 years) participants, we examined whether memory for meaningful speaker sources would accompany older adults' recollective experience. Indeed, memory for male and female speakers (but not partial memory for gender; Experiment 1) as well as bound memory for speakers and their facial expressions (Experiment 2) distinguished between both younger and older adults' RK reports. Thus, memory for some sources forms a common basis for younger and older adults' retrieval experience. Nonetheless, older adults still showed lower objective source memory and lower subjective source-attribution confidence than younger adults when reporting recollective experiences, suggesting that source memory is less relevant to their retrieval experience than for younger adults.
authors.affiliation: a School of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology , University of Mannheim , Mannheim , Germany.
authors.forename: Beatrice G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Kuhlmann
authors.affiliation: a School of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology , University of Mannheim , Mannheim , Germany.
authors.forename: C Dennis
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Boywitt
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive aging; binding; recollection; remember/know; source memory