| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 心理學所 === 97 === Older people often complain memory loss in daily life and in the present study we investigated effects of aging on visual memory of scenes. In Experiment 1 we collected hundreds of real-life scene pictures from the internet and showed differential patterns of decline in both semantic memory and episodic memory of scenes among aged participants. For Experiments 2 to 5, using 3-D computer-rendered scene images, we aimed to clarify impairment of which memory system may have contributed to age-related decline in visual memory of scenes. In Experiment 2, we compared the memory performance on object arrays with scenes in different age groups. Although age-related change was found but the interaction of age and task condition was not reliable. In Experiment 3, we examined the contextual effect on age-related memory change by manipulating the presence versus absence of scene background. Again age-related change was found but the interaction between age and task condition was not significant. In Experiment 4, we lengthened the encoding time of study phase to improve the memory performance of elderly participants. That manipulation failed to produce reliable effect, suggesting that efficiency and strategies of encoding may have impaired in older people and lengthened encoding time was insufficient to improve their performance. Finally, in Experiment 5, the targets were changed to objects with low object-scene association values and results revealed that both age-related change and interaction (with scene presence) were significant. This finding showed that in viewing natural scenes, high associative objects are more likely to be encoded earlier and more frequently in all aged groups. However, elderly participants may not be able to allocate attention to and encode objects with low associative values given the limited viewing time. Taken together, the findings of the present study suggest that age-related reduction in visual memory of scenes may have been caused by impairments in encoding efficiency and strategy in older participants.
|
|---|
