title: Nonbelieved memories in middle-aged and older people.
abstract: Previous studies have reported that young participants typically date events that they remember, but no longer believe they experienced, to the period of childhood. The present study investigated whether participants aged between 40 and 79years dated events related to relinquished memories to the period of childhood, as do younger people, or whether they dated such events to a period later in life. The study also compared believed and nonbelieved memories with respect to memory perspective (1st vs 3rd person perspective). Results indicated that the majority of middle-aged and older people dated nonbelieved memories to the period of childhood (median age=8years). No correlation was found between the participants' current age and their age at the time the nonbelieved event occurred. In addition, results showed that believed memories were more likely to be retrieved from a 1st person perspective than were nonbelieved memories.
authors.affiliation: University of Liège, Belgium. Electronic address: serge.bredart@ulg.ac.be.
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brédart
authors.affiliation: University of Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marion
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bouffier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008875:Middle Aged; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Aging; Autobiographical memory; False memories; Nonbelieved memories