Verbatim and gist memory in aging.
Marlène Abadie, Elisa Gavard, Fabrice Guillaume
Abstract
= 46) studied a list including related (strong gist activation) and unrelated words (weak gist activation) and performed a recognition test consisting of targets, related distractors, and unrelated distractors. Gist memory increased from the strong relative to the weak gist condition in both age groups. Whereas both younger and older adults could retrieve gist traces of the targeted words, older adults were impaired in their ability to retrieve their verbatim traces, resulting in increased false recognition of the related distractors. These findings suggest an age-related decrease in the ability to retrieve verbatim details of the past episodes accompanied by an increase in reliance on gist memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).