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Introduction: Age-based stereotype threat (ABST), the concern of being judged according to a negative age stereotype may lead to underperformance in the stereotype domain. The present study aims to replicate the negative effect of ABST on episodic memory. Importantly, we further examine openness to experience as a potential buffer of the ABST effect as well as the role that different memory strategies may play in episodic memory performance. Method: Seventy-five older adults were randomly assigned to the ABST condition or the control condition before taking a word-stem cued recall memory task. They learned word-lists with either a repetition strategy, low resource demanding but less efficient, or a mental imagery strategy, high resource demanding but more efficient. Openness was measured with the Big-5 personality questionnaire. Results: ABST reduced memory performance and disrupted more the recall of words learned with the imagery strategy. The results also showed that openness predicted recall performance associated with the imagery strategy only in the threatened group. Conclusion: These results indicated that a high level in openness may disrupt the negative effect of ABST by improving the capacity of threatened people to execute efficient, resource demanding memory strategies. This finding supports the idea that contextual factors as well as individual characteristics such as personality, need to be considered when assessing episodic memory in aging.

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Aging is marked by a memory decline related to an executive function decline. Physical activity (PA) has beneficial effects on both executive functions and memory, especially in aging. The protective effects of PA on these two cognitive abilities have always been studied separately, despite the well-established relationship between memory and executive functions. Our objective was to explore whether the benefits of PA on memory could be explained by reduced age-related changes in executive functions.Nineteen young adults (27.16 years old) and 25 older adults (69.64 years old) performed a resource-dependent memory task, three executive tasks and completed a PA questionnaire (measuring sports and leisure PA). Age group and PA effects on memory and executive performance were analyzed with generalized linear models. Mediation analyses were calculated using method of causal steps approach with a non-parametric bootstrapping procedure.The results confirmed the effects of age and PA on memory and executive performance. A significant interaction confirmed the protective effect of PA on age-related cognitive performance. PA was positively correlated with performance in both memory and executive tasks, but only in the older adults. Although each predictor alone (age, executive functions and PA) significantly explained memory performance in older adults, only the effect of PA on memory performance remained significant when all the predictors were introduced in the analyses.PA mediates the effects of age and executive functions on memory performance. This suggests that PA protects older adults against memory decline by reducing the decline in executive functioning.

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Organizing information is beneficial to episodic memory performance. Among several possible organizational strategies, two consist of organizing the information in semantic clusters (semantic organization) or self-organizing the information based on new associations that do not exist in semantic memory (subjective organization). Here, we investigated in a single study how these two organizational behaviors were underlined by different controlled processes and whether these relations were subjected to age-related differences. We tested 123 younger adults (n = 63) and older adults (n = 60) on two episodic memory tasks, one where the words were organizable and another where the words were not organizable, allowing for semantic and subjective organization, respectively. Additionally, participants were tested on three cognitive control tasks (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop Test and Trail Making Test) and three working memory tasks (Backward Digit Span, Alpha Span and N-back test). Results revealed well-established age-related differences in terms of recall performance and organizational strategy implementation. More importantly, we found evidence that the different cognitive tests statistically yielded two different latent factors, a cognitive control factor and a working memory factor. Based on this dissociation, we found that only cognitive control contributed to semantic organization in all age groups whereas only working memory contributed to subjective organization, also in all age groups. These results shed new lights on our understanding of how controlled processes differently contribute to organizational behaviors in episodic memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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This study aimed to explore the effects of age and educational level on recall performance and organisational strategies used during recall as a function of the level of memory task difficulty. Younger (n = 55, age range = 20-39 years) and older (n = 45, age range = 65-75 years) adults learned a word list where the words were either already semantically grouped (easier) or presented in pseudo-random order (harder), and then recalled the words. The number of words recalled was calculated, and an index of clustering was computed to assess organisational strategies. Older adults recalled less words than the younger ones. Older adults with a higher educational level recalled more words than their counterparts with a lower educational level when the memory task was easier, but they all performed similarly on the harder memory task. Moreover, we noted a strong positive association between educational level and semantic organisation in older adults when the memory task was easier. Regardless of educational level, older adults used semantic organisation as much as younger adults when the memory task was easier. However, when the memory task was harder, older adults showed significantly less organisational strategies than younger adults, the latter using semantic organisation to boost their recall performance. In sum, the protective effect of educational level seems to be restricted on recall performance, but not organisational strategies, in easy memory tasks providing sufficient external information about the most efficient mnemonic strategy to use. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10433-022-00724-z.

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The present study investigated the impact of cognitive reserve on episodic memory and metamemory control during aging using a multidimensional index of cognitive reserve and a measure of metamemory control abilities. We tested the hypotheses that cognitive reserve may play a protective role against age-related differences in episodic memory and metamemory control and that metamemory control may mediate the effect of cognitive reserve on episodic memory during aging. Young and older adults carried out a readiness-recall task in which task difficulty was manipulated through a variation of the nature of the cue-target pair link (weak vs. strong semantic associates). Episodic memory was assessed through recall performance, and metamemory by a task difficulty index reflecting the ability to adjust study time to task difficulty. Results confirmed that older adults recall fewer words, indicating an age-related deficit in episodic memory, and that older adults adjust less to task difficulty, suggesting impaired metamemory control. Findings also showed that metamemory control moderates the age-related decline in episodic memory and that cognitive reserve plays a protective role against age-related deficits in episodic memory and metamemory control. In addition, metamemory abilities mediated the beneficial effect of cognitive reserve on episodic memory performance during aging. Hence, this study sheds new light on the mechanisms underlying the impact of cognitive reserve on cognitive aging, highlighting the role of metacognitive processes.

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Episodic memory decline with aging may be due to an age-related deficit in encoding processing, older adults having increasing difficulty to self-initiate encoding strategies that support later retrieval. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study explored for the first time the neural correlates of successful encoding in a resource-dependent episodic memory task, in which participants had to self-initiate processes at both encoding and retrieval. At the behavioral level, results confirm the better memory performance of young than older adults. Comparing the neural activity elicited by studied items that were and were not subsequently recalled (Subsequent Memory Effect, SME), electrophysiological data revealed that younger adults showed a significant and sustained SME, shifting from parietal to frontal areas, suggesting that they self-initiated deep encoding strategies. In older adults, the duration of brain activity was shorter and located more in the parietal than frontal areas, suggesting that they used shallow rather than deep processes. Consistent with the hypothesis of a deficit in self-initiated strategies in aging, our findings suggest that when older adults are faced with a difficult memory task (no encoding support and no cue at retrieval), they engage fewer elaborative strategies than young adults, resulting in impaired episodic memory performance.

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The present study examined the effects of current physical exercise and age on episodic memory and fluid intelligence, assessed with a free-recall task and the Culture Fair Intelligence Test (Cattell, 1963) respectively, while statistically controlling for other cognitive reserve factors (educational level, leisure activities, and vocabulary level). Two hundred and eight participants aged 20 to 85 participated in the study. Physical exercise level was indexed by weekly frequency over the last 12 months using self-reported measurement (from none to 4 times a week). Overall, results show a beneficial effect of physical exercise especially from a weekly practice of 2 times, and significant interaction between physical exercise and age on episodic memory and fluid intelligence capacities indicating a reduced effect of age in more physically active participants. These results reinforce the view that physical exercise is a strong and specific reserve factor that reduces decline in some cognitive functions during aging.

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Physical activity has beneficial effects on executive functions and episodic memory, two processes affected by aging. These benefits seem to depend on the type of memory task, but only a few studies have evaluated them despite their importance in understanding aging. This study aimed to confirm that the benefits of physical activity on episodic memory in older adults vary according to the executive resources required by the memory task, comparing free recall and cued recall. Thirty-seven young adults and 37 older adults performed two memory tasks and an updating task. The two groups had a similar level of physical activity over the preceding 12 months, assessed by a questionnaire. Both the memory and the updating tasks were performed better by the younger than the older adults. A similar cueing effect was observed in the two groups. Physical activity was positively correlated with updating and free recall, but not with cued-recall, and only in older adults. Regression analyses indicated that physical activity accounted for 24% of the variance in free recall in older adults. Updating did not predict free recall (ns) when physical activity was entered in the analysis. The present results show that the benefits of physical activity vary with age and episodic memory task. Only free-recall performance, which relies on updating, seems to depend on physical activity, suggesting that the executive resources required for the task play an important role in the effect of physical activity on memory performance. This should be investigated in greater depth in subsequent studies.

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BACKGROUND: Episodic memory is the memory system which is most affected by ageing. However, similar memory decline is not seen in all older adults. Various cognitive reserve factors, such as the Openness Personality Trait and level of educational attainment, and cognitive resources linked to these factors, such as executive control and crystallised knowledge, can predict older adults' memory performance. OBJECTIVE: This study examined the link between and the role of these variables in older adults' memory performances according to the difficulty of the task. METHODS: Forty participants (aged between 60 and 82) learned 24 paired words with two encoding conditions (reading and generation), and then performed a cued recall. They were asked for their level of educational attainment, and their openness, executive control and crystallised knowledge levels were respectively measured using a personality questionnaire (Big Five), an inhibition test (Stroop) and a vocabulary test (Mill Hill). RESULTS: Only crystallised knowledge predicts older adults' recall of generated words while openness and executive control predict and mediate the effect of level of education on older adults' recall of read words. CONCLUSION: Openness is a reserve factor and is an essential component, along with executive control, in difficult memory tasks.

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Aging is characterized by an increase in older adults' negative beliefs about their memory. These negative metamemory beliefs are thought to decrease their motivation to engage in memory tasks and to implement effective memory strategies leading to decreased memory performance. Memory assessment conditions tend to accentuate this phenomenon by increasing the salience of negative metamemory beliefs, resulting in an artificial reduction in memory performance (i.e., stereotype threat). However, experimental interventions like allowing participants to successfully complete a cognitive task before memory assessment (i.e., prior task success condition) would improve older adults' metamemory beliefs, allowing them to increase their memory performance. The effect of these psycho-emotional and contextual factors must be taken into account, as they are likely to induce bias in research and clinical examinations.

Le vieillissement est caractérisé par une augmentation des croyances négatives des adultes âgés à propos de leur mémoire. Ces croyances métamnésiques négatives diminueraient leur motivation à s'engager dans les tâches de mémoire et à mettre en place les stratégies efficaces conduisant à une diminution des performances mnésiques. Les conditions d'évaluation de la mémoire tendent à accentuer ce phénomène en augmentant la saillance des croyances métamnésiques négatives, ce qui entraîne une réduction artificielle des performances de mémoire (i.e., menace du stéréotype). Toutefois, certaines interventions expérimentales (e.g., réussite préalable) permettraient d'améliorer les croyances métamnésiques des adultes âgés, augmentant ainsi leur performance de mémoire. La prise en compte de l'effet de ces facteurs psychoaffectifs et contextuels est importante puisqu'ils sont susceptibles d'induire des biais lors des recherches et des examens cliniques.

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We explored whether control processes could account for age-related differences in internal strategy use, which in turn would contribute to episodic and working memory decline in aging. Young and older adults completed the internal strategy subscale of the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire, a free-recall task (FRT), a reading span task (RST), and 3 executive control tasks (the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Initial Letter Fluency Test, and the Digit Symbol Substitution Test) allowing us to calculate a composite index of control processes. Results indicated that both self-reported internal strategy use and control processes index accounted for a significant proportion of the age-related variance in the FRT and the RST. However, once the control processes index was controlled for, variance in both the FRT and RST explained by internal strategy use were significantly reduced. Additionally, age-related variance in internal strategy use was mediated by the control processes index. These results suggest a cascade model in which individual control level would mediate age-related differences in internal strategy use, which in turn would mediate age-related differences in episodic and working memory performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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BACKGROUND: Episodic memory is the most affected memory system in aging. However, memory decline is not similar in every older adult. Various cognitive reserve factors, as Openness personality trait or educational level, and cognitive resources linked to these factors, as executive control and crystallized knowledge, can predict older adults' memory performance. OBJECTIVE: This study examined the link between and the role of these variables in older adults' memory performances according to the task difficulty. METHODS: Forty participants (60-82 years old) learned 24 paired words with two encoding conditions (reading and generation) and then performed a cued recall. Their educational level was asked, and their Openness, executive control and crystallized knowledge levels were respectively measured using a personality questionnaire (Big Five), an inhibition test (Stroop) and a vocabulary test (Mill Hill). RESULTS: Only crystallized knowledge predicts older adults' generated words recall while Openness and executive control predict and mediate educational level effect on older adults' read words recall. CONCLUSION: Openness is a reserve factor and is an essential component, along with executive control, in difficult memory tasks.

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Back-Ground/Study Context: The goal of this study was to examine how repeated practice of an inhibition test could improve performance in the test in young and older adults. In particular, we wished to explore whether the gains made during a practice program varied between age groups, and how educational level influenced practice-related gains in older adults. Thus, we tried to disentangle two hypotheses explaining the benefits of practice, namely compensation (greater gain by the lowest performers) and magnification (greater gain by the highest performers).Method: Thirty-three younger adults and 60 older adults were divided into two groups each: (1) Groups in the Practice condition had 10 sessions practicing different versions of Card C of the Stroop Test, (2) groups in the Control condition completed only the pretest and posttest.Results: Overall, results showed that the performance of both young and older adults improved more in the practice condition than in the control condition. The older adults benefited more from practice than the young adults, with earlier and more regular improvement over the 10 sessions. Moreover, the older adults with a higher educational level benefited most.Discussion: These findings seem to support both the compensation and the magnification hypotheses, depending on the variable (age or educational level).

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Control and representation (Craik & Bialystok, 2006, 2008) could be considered as potential cognitive resources playing a protective role against age-related memory decline. The main objective of this study was to explore whether the protective role (passive vs. active) associated with these resources varies according to the characteristics of the memory task. Young and older adults' memory performance was assessed using a cued-recall and a recognition task. Control and representation were measured, using the Excluded Letter Fluency Test and the Mill Hill vocabulary test, respectively. The results revealed that both control and representation had a significant positive impact on performance in both memory tasks. However, in the cued-recall task, age interacted only with control and not with representation level. Memory performance in this task was correlated with the control measure only for the older adults, indicating that memory decline in this task is moderated by control level. By contrast, for the recognition task, results showed that age interacted only with representation, indicating that the association between representation and recognition performance was greater for the older than the younger adults. This suggests that age-related recognition decline is moderated by representation level. These results suggest that the role played by both control and representation as protective resources against age-related memory decline depends on the task features; control would have an active protective role for cued-recall tasks, which involve more self-initiated and strategic processes, whereas representation would play this active protective role in a recognition task, which is heavily dependent upon semantic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

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Aging is characterized by a cognitive decline of fluid abilities and is also associated with electrophysiological changes. The vascular hypothesis proposes that brain is sensitive to vascular dysfunction which may accelerate age-related brain modifications and thus explain age-related neurocognitive decline. To test this hypothesis, cognitive performance was measured in 39 healthy participants from 20 to 80 years, using tests assessing inhibition, fluid intelligence, attention and crystallized abilities. Brain functioning associated with attentional abilities was assessed by measuring the P3b ERP component elicited through an auditory oddball paradigm. To assess vascular health, we used an innovative measure of the pulsatility of deep brain tissue, due to variations in cerebral blood flow over the cardiac cycle. Results showed (1) a classical effect of age on fluid neurocognitive measures (inhibition, fluid intelligence, magnitude and latency of the P3b) but not on crystallized measures, (2) that brain pulsatility decreases with advancing age, (3) that brain pulsatility is positively correlated with fluid neurocognitive measures and (4) that brain pulsatility strongly mediated the age-related variance in cognitive performance and the magnitude of the P3b component. The mediating role of the brain pulsatility in age-related effect on neurocognitive measures supports the vascular hypothesis of cognitive aging.

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The present experiment aimed to gain further understanding of the generation effect by investigating its neural correlates during encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants first encoded pairs of words under either a read or a generate condition and then completed a cued-recall task. Results confirmed the benefit of generation on memory performance. In addition, ERPs associated with the successfully encoded words had greater magnitude for generated than read words, from 900 to 1800ms post-stimulus, on middle and bilateral frontal and parietal electrodes sites, mostly on the right hemisphere. Analyses also revealed that this greater activity was significantly correlated with executive control abilities but not with semantic knowledge. These findings show that generation is associated with greater later neural activity, suggesting the use of additional processes. Our findings also provide some evidence in support of the cognitive effort hypothesis of the generation effect.

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While executive control (processes that facilitate the adaptation to new and/or complex situations) show an age-related decline, behavioral studies have observed stronger correlations between control and certain cognitive functions in older compared to young adults, which are often interpreted as an increase in the reliance on controlled processes with aging. Fifty-seven young adults (Mage=27.4 year, SD = 4.1) and 79 older adults (Mage=69.9 year, SD = 6.8) were administered several Fluid Reasoning, Control, and Representation measures. For the second step of the study, a group of 41 older adults (Mage=68.3 year, SD = 6.2) was selected as matching the young ones in terms of control measures. Correlations between fluid reasoning and control were stronger in older than in young adults. A General Linear Model analysis revealed a significant interaction between age and control variables. These results confirm the greater reliance on executive control in fluid reasoning performance in older adults, which may correspond to an active mechanism to cope with age-related difficulties.

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Age-related stereotype concerns culturally shared beliefs about the inevitable decline of memory with age. In this study, stereotype priming and stereotype threat manipulations were used to explore the impact of age-related stereotype on metamemory beliefs and episodic memory performance. Ninety-two older participants who reported the same perceived memory functioning were divided into two groups: a threatened group and a non-threatened group (control). First, the threatened group was primed with an ageing stereotype questionnaire. Then, both groups were administered memory complaints and memory self-efficacy questionnaires to measure metamemory beliefs. Finally, both groups were administered the Logical Memory task to measure episodic memory, for the threatened group the instructions were manipulated to enhance the stereotype threat. Results indicated that the threatened individuals reported more memory complaints and less memory efficacy, and had lower scores than the control group on the logical memory task. A multiple mediation analysis revealed that the stereotype threat effect on the episodic memory performance was mediated by both memory complaints and memory self-efficacy. This study revealed that stereotype threat impacts belief in one's own memory functioning, which in turn impairs episodic memory performance.

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The current experiment aimed to explore age differences in brain activity associated with successful memory retrieval in older adults with different levels of executive functioning, at different levels of task demand. Memory performance and fMRI activity during a recognition task were compared between a young group and two older groups characterized by a low (old-low group) vs. high (old-high group) level of executive functioning. Participants first encoded pictures, presented once (Hard condition) or twice (Easy condition), and then completed a recognition memory task. Old-low adults had poorer memory performance than the two other groups, which did not differ, in both levels of task demands. In the Easy condition, even though older adults demonstrated reduced activity compared to young adults in several regions, they also showed additional activations in the right superior frontal gyrus and right parietal lobule (positively correlated to memory accuracy) for the old-high group and in the right precuneus (negatively correlated to memory accuracy), right anterior cingulate gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus for the old-low group. In the Hard condition, some regions were also more activated in the young group than in the older groups. Vice versa, old-high participants demonstrated more activity than either the young or the old-low group in the right frontal gyrus, associated with more accurate memory performance, and in the left frontal gyrus. In sum, the present study clearly showed that age differences in the neural correlates of retrieval success were modulated by task difficulty, as suggested by the CRUNCH model, but also by interindividual variability, in particular regarding executive functioning.

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We examined the hypothesis that age-related differences in the reliance on executive control may be better explained by variations of task demand than by a mechanism specifically linked to aging. To this end, we compared the relationship between the performance of young and older adults on two executive functioning tests and an updating working-memory task with different load levels. The results revealed a significant interaction between age, task demand, and individual executive capacities, indicating that executive resources were only involved at lower loads in older adults, and only at higher loads in young adults. Overall, the results are not consistent with the proposition that cognition places greater demand on executive control in older adults. However, they support the view that how much young and older adults rely on executive control to accomplish cognitive tasks depends on task demand. Finally, interestingly these results are consistent with the CRUNCH model accounting for age-related differences in brain activations.

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