Higher intraindividual variability is associated with more forgetting and dedifferentiated memory functions in old age.

Autor/inn/en	Papenberg, Goran; Bäckman, Lars; Chicherio, Christian; Nagel, Irene E.; Heekeren, Hauke R.; Lindenberger, Ulman; Li, Shu-Chen
Titel	Higher intraindividual variability is associated with more forgetting and dedifferentiated memory functions in old age.
Quelle	In: Neuropsychologia, 49 (2011) 7, S. 1879-1888 PDF als Volltext Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Beigaben	Literaturangaben
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0028-3932; 1873-3514
DOI	10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.03.013
Schlagwörter	Bildungsforschung; Empirische Untersuchung; Erinnerung; Gedächtnis; Reaktionsvermögen; Vergessen; Individuum; Deutschland
Abstract	Intraindividual trial-to-trial reaction time (RT) variability is commonly found to be higher in clinical populations or life periods that are associated with impaired cognition. In the present study, higher within-person trial-to-trial RT variability in a perceptual speed task is related to more forgetting and dedifferentiation of memory functions in older adults (aged 60-71 years). More specifically, our study showed that individuals in a high-variability group (n = 175) forgot more memory scenes over a 1-week retention interval than individuals in the low-variability group (n = 174). In contrast, slower RT speed was associated with poorer episodic memory in general, but unrelated to the amount of forgetting. Moreover, results from multiple group latent factor analyses showed that episodic memory and working memory functions were more highly correlated in the high-variability (r = .63) than in the low-variability (r = .25) group. Given that deficits in dopamine (DA) modulation may underlie increases in RT variability, the present findings are in line with (i) recent animal studies implicating DA in long-term episodic memory consolidation and (ii) neurocomputational work linking DA modulation of performance variability to dedifferentiation of cognitive functions in old age. (DIPF/Orig.).
Erfasst von	DIPF \| Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsforschung und Bildungsinformation, Frankfurt am Main
Update	2015/4