Asymmetric increase in episodic and procedural memory interference in older adults (Experiment 1; Episodic Interference on Procedural Memory)

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Michael Freedberg, University of Texas-Austin

Version Title: View help for Version Title Pre-published data

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
BC_analysis_ICPSR.Rmd	text/plain	14.3 KB	08/19/2024 11:12:AM
R_Data.csv	text/csv	5.4 KB	08/19/2024 10:43:AM
R_Data_Consolidation.csv	text/csv	3.4 KB	08/19/2024 11:09:AM

Project Citation:

Freedberg, Michael. Asymmetric increase in episodic and procedural memory interference in older adults (Experiment 1; Episodic Interference on Procedural Memory). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-06-13. https://doi.org/10.3886/E208584V2

Project Description

Summary: In younger adults, newly formed procedural memories are weakened by the subsequent formation of episodic memories (E→P interference) and vice versa (P→E interference; “cross-memory interference”). Older adults experience significant decline in episodic memory but maintain relatively intact procedural memory. This asymmetric decline in memory may also cause an asymmetric change in cross-memory interference compared to younger adults. For example, older adults may experience a significant increase in one type of cross-memory interference while leaving the other unchanged. Additionally, decline in episodic memory may cause E→P interference to either increase or decrease depending on how the episodic and procedural memory systems interact. However, no study to our knowledge has compared cross-memory interference between younger and older adults. We investigated cross-memory interference in younger and older adults by measuring E→P (Exp. 1) and P→E (Exp. 2) interference in 40 younger (18-40 years old) and 40 older (≥ 55 years old) adults. Compared to younger adults, the results show that older adults experience significantly stronger E→P interference while P→E interference was statistically indistinguishable between groups. These results confirm that older adults experience an asymmetric increase in cross-memory interference and suggest that the increase in E→P interference is related to the asymmetric decline in episodic memory relative to procedural memory.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Memory; episodic; procedural; aging; interference

Geographic Coverage: Austin, Texas

Time Period(s): 1/1/2023 – 6/1/2024

Collection Date(s): 1/1/2023 – 6/1/2024

Universe: Cognitively unimpaired younger (18-40 years) and older (≤55 years) adults.

Data Type(s): experimental data

Methodology

Response Rate: Of the forty enrolled and tested, none were excluded.

Sampling: We recruited 40 participants, consisting of 20 cognitively unimpaired young adults (22.9±3.28 years old) and 20 healthy older adults (65.6±6.97 years old) from the greater Austin, Texas area.

Data Source: Data were collected electronically from participants performing a computer task.

Collection Mode(s): cognitive assessment test

Scales: The mini-mental state exam (MMSE; Folstein et al, 1975, Journal of Psychiatry Research) was used to screen participants for the possible presence of dementia. We used the everyday memory questionnaire to measure participants' judgments of their everyday memory failures (EMQ; Sunderland et al., 1983; Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior). The main behavioral task was based on the original study by Brown and Robertson (2007; The Journal of Neuroscience).

Weights: The primary variable (procedural memory consolidation) was measured twice per participant. All participants' data were weighted equally in our analysis.

Unit(s) of Observation: Number of items remembered

Geographic Unit: Accuracy

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Published Versions

V2 [2025-06-13]

V1 [2024-08-21]

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