Distraction can reduce age-related forgetting.
Psychol Sci
; 24(4): 448-55, 2013 Apr.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23426890
ABSTRACT
In three experiments, we assessed whether older adults' generally greater tendency to process distracting information can be used to minimize widely reported age-related differences in forgetting. Younger and older adults studied and recalled a list of words on an initial test and again on a surprise test after a 15-min delay. In the middle (Experiments 1a and 2) or at the end (Experiment 3) of the delay, participants completed a 1-back task in which half of the studied words appeared as distractors. Across all experiments, older adults reliably forgot unrepeated words; however, older adults rarely or never forgot the words that had appeared as distractors, whereas younger adults forgot words in both categories. Exposure to distraction may serve as a rehearsal episode for older adults, and thus as a method by which general distractibility may be co-opted to boost memory.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Attention
/
Aging
/
Memory
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Psychol Sci
Journal subject:
PSICOLOGIA
Year:
2013
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Canada