Bugaiska and collaborators found a correlation only between executive performance and Remember responses, involving a memory retrieval strategy related to the specific context. For example, in the retrieval phase of a Remember-Know paradigm, participants have to say if they remember the word from the study phase and in what context (i.e., Remember responses considered as an episodic recollection), or if they remember the word but without any encoding details (i.e., Know responses, based on familiarity). Some studies suggest that the memory strategy used is linked to executive functioning during aging (e.g., ). The executive hypothesis of aging suggests that cognitive changes are the result of an age-related decline in executive functions due to their involvement in cognitive processes, including memory, especially in older adults compared to younger adults. Several meta-analyses confirm that advancing age has an influence on the executive functions in Miyake et al.’s model : updating, inhibition and flexibility.
Įxecutive functions are “a set of general-purpose control mechanisms, often linked to the prefrontal cortex of the brain, that regulate the dynamics of human cognition and action”, and it is widely accepted that they also decline with aging.
#ACTIVITY THEORY OF AGING PSYCH 101 CHAPTER8 FREE#
In fact, a memory task that provides environmental support (e.g., cued recall) requires fewer executive resources than one without such support (e.g., free recall). This difficulty can be reduced by providing environmental support, such as specific instructions, material or cues, thereby improving the memory performance of older adults and even reducing the age effect. Craik postulated that the age-related decrease in processing resources prevents the implementation of efficient encoding and retrieval processes. With the aging of the population, it is important to gain a better understanding of the episodic memory decline that accompanies aging, as well as protective factors. It is well established that aging is marked by episodic memory loss (i.e., encoding, storing and retrieval of personal experiences within their temporal and spatial contexts ), which is one of the most common subjective concerns of older adults. This should be investigated in greater depth in subsequent studies.
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.
The present results show that the benefits of physical activity vary with age and episodic memory task. Updating did not predict free recall (ns) when physical activity was entered in the analysis. Regression analyses indicated that physical activity accounted for 24% of the variance in free recall in older adults. Physical activity was positively correlated with updating and free recall, but not with cued-recall, and only in older adults. A similar cueing effect was observed in the two groups. Both the memory and the updating tasks were performed better by the younger than the older adults. The two groups had a similar level of physical activity over the preceding 12 months, assessed by a questionnaire. Thirty-seven young adults and 37 older adults performed two memory tasks and an updating task.
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. 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. Physical activity has beneficial effects on executive functions and episodic memory, two processes affected by aging.
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