Aging; cost-efficiency; learning; memory; naming; Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology; Experimental and Cognitive Psychology; Geriatrics and Gerontology; Psychiatry and Mental Health
Abstract :
[en] People's names are challenging to learn at all ages. Because people somewhat know this, they might spontaneously use cost-efficient encoding strategies and devote more resources to learn names that are most likely to be useful. To test this hypothesis, we created a pseudo-incidental learning situation in which young and older participants were exposed to 12 characters from a TV show and reviewed face-name-instrument triplets. Characters' probability of appearance was specified via importance labels (main or secondary characters, bit parts). A surprised cued recall test showed that young adults performed better than older ones, and that semantic information was better recalled than names. Consistent with cost-efficient encoding strategies, participants in both groups recalled names and semantic information about most important characters better. Interestingly, there were large individual differences: people who reported using cost-efficient strategies performed better. At the individual level, memory advantages for most important characters' names and semantic information correlated.
Disciplines :
Theoretical & cognitive psychology
Author, co-author :
Devue, Christel ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie > Psychologie et neurosciences cognitives
Badolle, Marie; Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Research Unit, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
Brédart, Serge ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie
Language :
English
Title :
Strategic learning of people's names as a function of expected utility in young and older adults.
Publication date :
29 March 2024
Journal title :
Neuropsychology, Development, and Cognition. Section B, Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition
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