Evidence for a dissociation between objective and subjective recollection in healthy aging: a multi-level analysis approach

Although healthy aging has been related to a decline in recollection as indexed by
objective measures, the subjective experience of recollection seems to remain stable,
leading to a so-called recollection dissociation. To date, however, behavioral studies
have only examined these age-related effects using aggregated data across trials,
such that the relationship between subjective and objective measures of recollection
on a trial-by-trial basis remains unknown. In this study, young and older adults
performed a cued recollection task with pictures associated with descriptive labels at
encoding. At retrieval, participants were cued with the labels and were asked to answer
a source memory question, rate the vividness of their memory of the associated
picture, and recall as many details of the picture as they could. Results revealed that
older adults showed poorer temporal source memory but produced higher vividness
ratings than young adults. Moreover, older adults recalled fewer details - perceptual
components - in the free recall task, even when the effects of narrative style and
executive functioning were controlled, suggesting that their deficit is episodic in nature.
Multilevel analyses revealed that, across trials, the relationship between subjective
(vividness) and objective (free recall) recollection was greater in young than in older
participants. These results provide direct evidence that, compared to young individuals,
older adults rely less on the amount of retrieved episodic details to judge their
subjective experiences while remembering.