Declining Memory And Lack Of Imagination Linked In Older Adults
According to the study, episodic memory, which represents our personal memories of past experiences, "allows individuals to project themselves both backward and forward in subjective time."
Therefore, in order to create imagined future events, the individual must be able to remember the details of previously experienced ones extract various details and put them together to create an imaginary event, a process known as the constructive-episodic-simulation.
Harvard psychologists Donna Rose Addis, Alana Wong and Daniel Schacter supported the hypothesis using an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview in which young and older participants responded to randomly selected cue words with past and future scenarios.
When compared with young adults, the researchers found that the older adults displayed a significant reduction in the use of internal episodic details to describe both past memories and imagined future events.
The results of the study, which appear in the January 2008 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, not only reveal that there is a link between age-related memory deficits and future planning in older adults, but raise questions concerning the involvement of other types of memory, as well.
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Article adapted by Start Sanatate from original press release.
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Author: Donna Rose Addis
Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. Article entitled: "Age-Related Changes in Simulation of Future Events."
Source: Katie Kline
Association for Psychological Science
Declin de memorie ºi de lipsa de imaginatie Legat În Anterioarele Adulþi - Declining Memory And Lack Of Imagination Linked In Older Adults - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate