1
|
Xie C, Fong MCM, Ma MKH, Wang J, Wang WS. The retrogenesis of age-related decline in declarative and procedural memory. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1212614. [PMID: 37575428 PMCID: PMC10413564 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1212614] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/05/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023] Open
Abstract
The retrogenesis hypothesis proposes that the order of breakdown of cognitive abilities in older adults is the reverse of the developmental order of children. Declarative and procedural memory systems, however, have been empirically understudied regarding this issue. The current study aimed to investigate whether retrogenesis occurs in the developmental and decline order of the declarative and procedural memory systems. Besides, we further investigated whether retrogenesis occurs in declarative memory, which was tested through the recognition of familiar and unfamiliar items. Both questions were investigated by looking at 28 Chinese younger adults and 27 cognitively healthy Chinese older adults. The recognition memory task and the Serial Reaction Time Task were administered on two consecutive days in order to measure their declarative and procedural memory, respectively. The results showed older adults performed significantly worse than younger adults for both tasks on both days, suggesting a decline in both declarative and procedural memory. Moreover, older adults exhibited relatively preserved declarative memory compared to procedural memory. This does not follow the expectations of the retrogenesis hypothesis. However, older adults demonstrated superior performance and a steeper rate of forgetting for recognizing familiar items than unfamiliar items. This reverses the developmental order of different patterns in the declarative memory system. Overall, we conclude that retrogenesis occurs in the declarative memory system, while does not in the decline order of the two memory systems; this understanding can better help inform our broader understanding of memory aging.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Chenwei Xie
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Manson Cheuk-Man Fong
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Research Institute for Smart Ageing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Matthew King-Hang Ma
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Juliahna Wang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - William Shiyuan Wang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Research Institute for Smart Ageing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Yoon JH, Jeong HY, Lee Y, Kim YS, Choi J, Kim J. Lifespan Development of Syntactic Ability from Early Childhood to Old Age. COMMUNICATION SCIENCES & DISORDERS 2018. [DOI: 10.12963/csd.18552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
|
3
|
Gao JL, Cheung RTF, Chan YS, Chu LW, Lee TMC. Increased prospective memory interference in normal and pathological aging: different roles of motor and verbal processing speed. AGING NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITION 2012; 20:80-100. [PMID: 22486785 DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2012.672948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
This is a study on prospective memory (PM) and the PM interference effect in normal and pathological aging. One hundred and seven subjects, including 41 healthy young adults, 40 non-demented older adults and 26 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) participated in this study using a laboratory event-based PM task. PM task performance was comparable between the non-demented older and young adults, but impaired in the AD patients. The PM interference effect increased progressively from the healthy young adults, the non-demented older adults, to the AD patients. Path analysis revealed that the possible mechanism mediating the increased PM interference was the slow motor processing speed in normal aging, while it was the slow verbal speed in pathological aging. It is suggested that different neuropsychological mechanisms may underpin the affected performance of PM task in normal and pathological aging.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- J L Gao
- Department of Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | | | | | | | | |
Collapse
|