Selene Cansino,
Cinthya Estrada-Manilla,
Evelia Hernández-Ramos,
Joyce Graciela Martínez-Galindo,
Frine Torres-Trejo,
Tania Gómez-Fernández,
Mariana Ayala-Hernández,
David Osorio,
Melisa Cedillo-Tinoco,
Lissete Garcés-Flores,
Sandra Gómez-Melgarejo,
Karla Beltrán-Palacios,
Haydée Guadalupe García-Lázaro,
Fabiola García-Gutiérrez,
Yadira Cadena-Arenas,
Luisa Fernández-Apan, Andrea Bärtschi,
Julieta Resendiz-Vera,
María Dolores Rodríguez-Ortiz
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ABSTRACT: Previous studies have suggested that the ability to remember contextual information related to specific episodic experiences declines with advancing age; however, the exact moment in the adult life span when this deficit begins is still controversial. Source memory for spatial information was tested in a life span sample of 1,500 adults between the ages of 21 and 80. Initially, images of common objects were randomly presented on one quadrant of a screen while the participants judged whether they were natural or artificial. During the retrieval phase, these same images were mixed with new ones, and all images were displayed in the center of the screen. The participants were asked to judge whether each image was new or old, and whether it was old, to indicate in which quadrant of the screen it had originally been presented. Source accuracy decreased linearly with advancing age at a rate of -0.6% per year across all decades even after controlling for educational level; this decline was unaffected by sex. These results reveal that either spatial information becomes less efficiently bound to episodic representations over time or that the ability to retrieve this information decreases gradually throughout the adult life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Developmental Psychology 06/2012; · 3.21 Impact Factor