社會訊息與自我參照對正常老化的連結記憶之影響

Abstract

研究指出正常老化過程中，連結記憶會隨之衰退，而提供社會訊息(social information)，能提升其連結記憶(associative memory)表現，然而，過去研究亦受自我參照(self-reference effect)之影響。因此，本研究旨在操弄不同社會程度之訊息及自我／他人參照，以探討對正常老化的連結記憶之影響。本研究中共有健康年輕組及健康老年組各25位，所有參與者據自我或他人參照，學習物品－社會場景之配對。結果顯示老年組的連結記憶，在高社會意義情境中，他人較自我參照表現更好，而低社會意義情境中，能展現出自我參照效果，無社會性情境中則不受自我／他人參照影響。這些結果顯示增加社會相關聯之訊息，或可助於正常老年人的連結記憶。

Prior studies have demonstrated declined associative memory in normal aging. Although recent research has suggested this age-related associative deficit can be attenuated by using social information, these findings may have the potential confounding of the self-reference effect. Thus, the study aimed to examine the interrelationship between social information and self-reference in associative memory across young and old cohorts. In this study, 25 young and 25 older adults participated. All participants encoded object-scene pairs under either self- or other-reference instruction. In addition, the scenes were manipulated with different degrees of social information (i.e., high-level social; HS, low-level social; LS, and nonsocial; NS). Results demonstrated that older adults gained benefit from self-referencing while encoding under the LS condition, like young adults. However, this effect did not show under the NS ones in the older group. Moreover, older adults revealed an improved associative memory with other-reference than with the self-reference under the HS condition. In summary, the current findings suggested that providing the interpersonal meaningful information could improve the associative memory for older people.