Two experiments were conducted to assess the costs of attentional load during a feature (colour-shape) binding task in younger and older adults. Experiment 1 showed that a demanding backwards counting task, which draws upon central executive/general attentional resources, reduced binding to a greater extent than individual feature memory, but the effect was no greater in older than in younger adults. Experiment 2 showed that presenting memory items sequentially rather than simultaneously, such that items are required to be maintained while new representations are created, selectively affects binding performance in both age groups. Although this experiment exhibited an age-related binding deficit overall, both age groups were affected by the attention manipulation to an equal extent. While a role for attentional processes in colour-shape binding was apparent across both experiments, manipulations of attention exerted equal effects in both age groups. We therefore conclude that age-related binding deficits neither emerge nor are exacerbated under conditions of high attentional load. Implications for theories of visual working memory and cognitive ageing are discussed.

The role of attention in binding visual features in working memory: evidence from cognitive ageing

Older adults have difficulties in binding information in long-term memory (e.g. objects with colours). The effect of age on visual short-term memory (VSTM) binding is less well understood. Recent evidence has suggested that older adults' VSTM for colours bound to shapes or for locations bound in configural representations may be preserved. In two experiments we investigated whether this lack of an age effect on VSTM for bound features can be reproduced when features are drawn from the same dimension (i.e. colour-colour binding) and when spatial clues are not available. Younger and older adults were presented with two sequential arrays of unicoloured or bicoloured objects and their accuracy in detecting changes between arrays was used as the measure of memory performance. Memory was assessed using a change detection paradigm for unicoloured objects and for bicoloured objects with changes in colour conjunctions (i.e. colours swapping between objects) or with changes in non-conjunctive colours (i.e. colours replacing colours in the study array). Both young and older adults were less accurate at remembering objects defined by colour conjunctions than unicoloured objects or objects composed of two non-conjunctive colours (Experiment 1). Increasing task demands in terms of memory and perceptual load had no greater effect on the older than the younger adults (Experiment 2). We suggest (1) that colours were not integrated into single units in VSTM; (2) that remembering the binding between colours has a cost; and (3) that neither of these effects are age-dependent.

Age and binding within-dimension features in visual short term memory : Supplementary data

Supplementary Material for manuscript "Ageing and feature binding in visual working memory: The role of presentation time" by Rhodes, S., Parra, M. A., & Logie, R. H

Ageing and feature binding in visual working memory: The role of presentation time. Supplementary Material

It has been suggested that an age-related decrease in the ability to bind and retain conjunctions of features may account for some of the pronounced decline of visual working memory (VWM) across the adult life span. So far the evidence for this proposal has been mixed with some suggesting a specific deficit in binding to location, while the retention of surface feature conjunctions (e.g., color-shape) appears to remain largely intact. The present experiments follow up on the results of an earlier study, which found that older adults were specifically poor at detecting conjunction changes when they were mixed with trials containing changes to individual features, relative to when these trials were blocked (Cowan, Naveh-Benjamin, Kilb, & Saults, 2006). Using stimuli defined by conjunctions of color and shape (Experiment 1), and color and location (Experiment 2) we find no evidence that older adults are less accurate at detecting binding changes when trial types are mixed. Further, analysis of estimates of discriminability provides substantial-to-strong evidence against this suggestion. We discuss these findings in relation to previous studies addressing the same question and suggest that much of the evidence for specific age-related VWM binding deficits is not as strong as it first appears. (PsycINFO Database Record

/pdf/healthy-aging-and-visual-working-memory-the-effect-of-mixing-3znt6xzex5.pdf

Healthy aging and visual working memory: The effect of mixing feature and conjunction changes.

The age-related associative memory deficit can be alleviated, under some conditions, when to-be-remembered associations are semantically related. In this study, we explored the experimental conditions in which older adults benefited from semantic relatedness and those that hindered any associative memory improvement. We did so by manipulating the level of semantic support within the associations presented at encoding and within the recombined pairs (i.e., the lures) at retrieval, such that pairs with high semantic support at encoding were recombined into pairs with equally high or with lower level of semantic support, and vice versa. We predicted that semantic relatedness would benefit older adults' associative memory when there was a decrease in semantic support from encoding to retrieval. Conversely, older adults' associative memory would be hindered when a recombination was equally or more familiar than the studied association. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the presence versus absence of semantic relatedness within associations both at encoding and at retrieval. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the frequency of related associations at encoding and at retrieval. Taken together, the results showed that older adults' associative memory was better in conditions in which associations closely matched semantic knowledge at encoding and were recombined into associations with no or less semantic support at retrieval. In contrast, older adults' performance was worse for semantically poorer associations at encoding that were recombined into associations with greater semantic support at retrieval. This suggests that older adults' associative memory can be improved by semantic support under specific experimental conditions only. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

/pdf/how-to-induce-an-age-related-benefit-of-semantic-relatedness-3fvsw4r9ll.pdf

How to induce an age-related benefit of semantic relatedness in associative memory: It’s all in the design.

The role of schematic support in age-related associative deficits in short-term and long-term memory.

Abstract Although the prevalence of depression, like many other mental health disorders, declines with age, older adults who seek behavioral health services often present with depressive symptoms mixed with cognitive complaints. This creates challenges for generalist practitioners, who are responsible for the majority of mental health care of aging individuals. Ageism and misconceptions about older adults are theorized barriers to clinicians seeking aging-specific specialty training. This completed experimental study showed that assignment to receiving foundational information about aging, including debunking common misconceptions about cognitive aging, influenced choice of continuing education (CE) preferences of generalist Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs). Among the randomly generated pool of LPCs (N=120), participants who received aging-specific information were more likely to choose an aging-specific CE option, F(4, 107) = 5.35, p<.001. Demographic variables, perceived competence for working with older adults, knowledge of aging, and ageist beliefs were also collected; analyses including these variables will also be presented.

https://academic.oup.com/innovateage/article-pdf/6/Supplement_1/274/48310120/igac059.1088.pdf

Shaping preferences for aging-specific continuing education by licensed professional counselors

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The role of schematic support in age-related associative deficits in short-term and long-term memory.

Shaping preferences for aging-specific continuing education by licensed professional counselors