Laurence Taconnat

University of Tours | UFR · UMR CNRS 7295 Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage

This study examined the efficacy of a strategy-based memory training for older adults at short- and long-term with two (5- and 11 months) follow-ups. We also explored whether booster sessions (additional training before the first follow-up) facilitated the maintenance of benefits. Thirty-three older adults received a training based on the teaching...

Organizing information is beneficial to episodic memory performance. Among several possible organizational strategies, two consist of organizing the information in semantic clusters (semantic organization) or self-organizing the information based on new associations that do not exist in semantic memory (subjective organization). Here, we investigat...

Aging is characterized by an increase in older adults’ negative beliefs about their memory. These negative metamemory beliefs are thought to decrease their motivation to engage in memory tasks and to implement effective memory strategies leading to decreased memory performance. Memory assessment conditions tend to accentuate this phenomenon by incr...

Episodic memory (EM) develops up to early adulthood, and declines in aging, following an inverted U-shaped profile. This study assessed the contribution of both Control (processes enabling adaptive and flexible behaviour in line with current goals) and Representation (crystallized schemas involved in memory and general knowledge) as factors likely...

Unlabelled: This study aimed to explore the effects of age and educational level on recall performance and organisational strategies used during recall as a function of the level of memory task difficulty. Younger (n = 55, age range = 20-39 years) and older (n = 45, age range = 65-75 years) adults learned a word list where the words were either al...

The present study investigated the impact of cognitive reserve on episodic memory and metamemory control during aging using a multidimensional index of cognitive reserve and a measure of metamemory control abilities. We tested the hypotheses that cognitive reserve may play a protective role against age-related differences in episodic memory and met...

Episodic memory development is linked to better clustering of items semantically related at recall. Previous studies have suggested that the use of clustering occurs relatively late in children’s development, and does not systematically lead to benefits. Here, we investigated how Control (the fluid goal-directed cognitive processes supporting adapt...

Research suggests that personality traits are associated with memory performance, particularly as people age. In two studies, we examined two personality traits (openness to experience and neuroticism) that have been hypothesized to modulate episodic memory performance in older adults. We tested the hypothesis that these traits would be differently...

Episodic memory decline with aging may be due to an age-related deficit in encoding processing, older adults having increasing difficulty to self-initiate encoding strategies that support later retrieval. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study explored for the first time the neural correlates of successful encoding in a resource-d...

Observation is known to improve memory for action. Previous findings linked such an effect with an easier relation processing of action components following observation compared to mere sentence reading. However, action observation also elicits implicit motor simulation, that is a processing of one’s movement through the observer own motor system....

Physical activity has beneficial effects on executive functions and episodic memory, two processes affected by aging. 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. This study aimed to confirm that the benefits of physical activity on episodic mem...

Background: Episodic memory is the memory system which is most affected by ageing. However, similar memory decline is not seen in all older adults. Various cognitive reserve factors, such as the Openness Personality Trait and level of educational attainment, and cognitive resources linked to these factors, such as executive control and crystallise...

L’objectif de cette étude était d’examiner, chez des adultes jeunes et âgés, la relation entre l’ouverture à l’expérience, les capacités de stratégie d’organisation subjective et les performances de mémoire. Cinquante jeunes adultes et 41 adultes plus âgés ont appris une liste de mots non reliés sémantiquement et ont dû les rappeler successivement...

Des combinaisons permettant de reproduire les changements sensorimoteurs liés au vieillissement ont été créées afin de mieux comprendre les difficultés rencontrées par les personnes âgées. Ces outils pourraient avoir un intérêt dans l’étude des processus cognitifs vieillissants. Selon les théories incarnées de la cognition, les déclins sensorimoteu...

We explored whether control processes could account for age-related differences in internal strategy use, which in turn would contribute to episodic and working memory decline in aging. Young and older adults completed the internal strategy subscale of the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire, a free-recall task (FRT), a reading span task (R...

Introduction Individuals with brain injuries experience cognitive and emotional changes that have long-lasting impacts on everyday life. In the context of rehabilitation, surveys have stressed the importance of compensating for memory disturbances to ease the impact of disorders on day-to-day autonomy. Despite extensive research on the nature of ne...

Background: Episodic memory is the most affected memory system in aging. However, memory decline is not similar in every older adult. Various cognitive reserve factors, as Openness personality trait or educational level, and cognitive resources linked to these factors, as executive control and crystallized knowledge, can predict older adults' memo...

The present study aimed to explore the contribution of the manual sensorimotor system to the memory of graspable objects. Participants in the experimental group underwent a short-term upper limb immobilization design to decrease arousal to their dominant hand. Such designs are known to elicit updating of sensorimotor representations and to hardened...

The effect of age on episodic memory has recently been shown to be modulated by individual characteristics such as psycho-emotional status. We investigated the combined effects of age and a psycho-emotional variable, Self-Esteem, on episodic memory (Cued-recall and recognition). We also examined the contribution of anxiety level on the influence of...

Résumé Cette étude visait à examiner les effets d’un programme de stimulation cognitive par des jeux sur les scores aux tests standard d’empan mnésique, de vitesse de traitement, de flexibilité mentale, de mise à jour en mémoire de travail, d’inhibition ainsi que son possible bénéfice secondaire sur l’estime de soi chez des adultes âgés. Quarante-h...

The main goal of this study was to explore the organizational strategies used by younger and older adults when encoding words, using eye-tracking. Participants had to learn a set of organizable words and then a set of non-organizable words, each presented on a single display. Participants were then asked to recall the words of each set in the order...

Background: Age-related stereotype threat impacts episodic memory performance. This study compared the predictors of memory performance in older adults with and without exposure to age-related stereotype threat, hypothesizing that activating the stereotype threat modulates the relative weight of metamemory predictors of memory performance. Methods:...

Back-Ground/Study Context: The goal of this study was to examine how repeated practice of an inhibition test could improve performance in the test in young and older adults. In particular, we wished to explore whether the gains made during a practice program varied between age groups, and how educational level influenced practice-related gains in o...

We explored whether experiencing differential efficacy of reading and generation for memory in an initial learning trial led younger and older adults to improve recall of read items in a subsequent learning trial, leading to a reduction of the generation effect. In the first trial, generation improved the memory performance of both young and older...

This commentary explores the relationships between the construct of successful aging and the experimental psychology of human aging—cognitive gerontology. What can or should cognitive gerontology contribute to understanding, defining, and assessing successful aging? Standards for successful aging reflect value judgments that are culturally and hist...

The present experiment aimed to gain further understanding of the generation effect by investigating its neural correlates during encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants first encoded pairs of words under either a read or a generate condition and then completed a cued-recall task. Results confirmed the benefit of generation on...

Le niveau d’études est considéré comme un facteur de réserve. Ainsi, les adultes âgés de haut niveau d’études ont de meilleures performances mnésiques que ceux ayant un niveau d’études plus bas. L’objectif de cette étude était d’examiner le rôle de la métamémoire comme un médiateur potentiel des effets du niveau d’études sur la performance mnésique...

Les fonctions exécutives déclinent avec le vieillissement et ce déclin explique en partie la diminution des performances cognitives liée au vieillissement. Dans la présente étude, nous avons analysé les effets de la pratique du Trail Making Test (TMT, test de flexibilité, une fonction exécutive) sur la performance à ce test et le rythme d’améliorat...

Efficient execution of strategies is crucial to memory performance and to age-related differences in this performance. Relative strategy complexity influences memory performance and aging effects on memory. Here, we aimed to further our understanding of the effects of relative strategy complexity by looking at the role of cognitive control function...

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a working memory (WM) training in elderly people, and to compare the effects of a WM training based on an adaptive procedure with one combining the same procedure with the use of a strategy, based on the construction of visual mental images. Eighteen older adults received training with a...

The aim of this present article is to investigate the nature of the cues based as a source for judgment of confidence in gestural working memory. 25 participants had to reproduce sequences of 27 meaningless gestures. The memory task was performed according to three experimental conditions: control, gestural interference, verbal interference. After...

The aim of this present article is to investigate the nature of the cues based as a source for judgment of confidence in gestural working memory. 25 participants had to reproduce sequences of 27 meaningless gestures. The memory task was performed according to three experimental conditions: control, gestural interference, verbal interference. After...

We examined the hypothesis that age-related differences in the reliance on executive control may be better explained by variations of task demand than by a mechanism specifically linked to aging. To this end, we compared the relationship between the performance of young and older adults on two executive functioning tests and an updating working-mem...

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is required when it is necessary to remember to perform an action at a specific future point in time. This type of memory has been found to be particularly sensitive to ageing, probably because it requires a self-initiated response at a specific time. In this study, we sought to examine the involvement of tempor...

Age-related stereotype concerns culturally shared beliefs about the inevitable decline of memory with age. In this study, stereotype priming and stereotype threat manipulations were used to explore the impact of age-related stereotype on metamemory beliefs and episodic memory performance. Ninety-two older participants who reported the same perceive...

In this study, the rationale of the Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis (CRUNCH; Reuter-Lorenz & Cappell, 2008) was used to investigate how executive control is involved when young and older adults accomplish an updating working-memory task. We hypothesized that the functional neural CRUNCH mechanisms would be reflected a...

We aim at understanding the brain reorganization observed in normal aging during memory retrieval. Using fMRI and EEG, recent results have shown a hemispheric asymmetry reduction in frontal and parietal regions with older adults (e.g. Park & Reuter-Lorenz, 2009 and e.g. Angel, Fay, Bouazzaoui, & Isingrini, 2011, respectively). In the present study,...

This study aimed at uncovering factors influencing execution of memory strategies and at furthering our understanding of ageing effects on memory performance. To achieve this end, we investigated strategy sequential difficulty (SSD) effects recently demonstrated by Uittenhove and Lemaire in the domain of problem solving. We found that both young an...

L’objectif de cet article de synthèse était d’appréhender le déclin en mémoire épisodique au cours du vieillissement en termes de modifications du comportement stratégique. Dans une première partie, nous avons considéré les modifications du comportement stratégique en tant que capacité limitée des adultes âgés à initier des processus contrôlés. Dan...

The main goal of this work was to evaluate the age-related episodic memory deficit in terms of strategic behavior impairment. Firstly, we considered the strategic behavior impairment as an age-related limited Capacity to initiate' control processes. Secondly, we adopted a metamnesic perspective by accounting for the age-related differences in regul...

This study examined the effect of divided attention and retrieval cues on the organizational strategy and on the efficiency of this strategy on episodic memory performance. Participants learned or recalled a list of organisable words either under divided attention or full attention. Cues were provided (cued recall) or not (free recall) at the retri...

Previous studies about the effects of ageing on the episodic feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy and its underlying processes have yielded conflicting results. Recent work suggests that using alternative measures to gamma correlations might allow more accurate and informative interpretations of metamemory performance in ageing. We therefore investiga...

Vieillissement et Cognition : de la représentation à la performance, in B.-F. Michel et C. Bastien (Ed.) Représentations et maladies neurodégénératives, DeBoeck Solal, Coll. Neuropsychologie, Paris, 41-52. Résumé La représentation que l'on se fait d'une personne et l'attente que l'on a de ses compétences peuvent influencer son comportement et ses c...

Recent behavioural and imaging data have shown that memory functioning seems to rely more on executive functions and on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in older than in young adults. Using a behavioural approach, our objective was to confirm the hypothesis that young and older adults present different patterns of correlation between episodic memory per...

Aging is characterized by a decrease of cognitive performance in most of cognitive domains. One of the most fundamental issues is then to know what are the underlying mechanisms of these age-related changes in human cognition. Recent research suggests that in addition to speed of processing and working memory capacities, age-related impairment in e...

Craik and Bialystok (2006, 2008) postulated that examining the evolution of knowledge representation and control processes across the life span could help in understanding age-related cognitive changes. The present study explored the hypothesis that knowledge representation and control processes are differentially involved in the episodic memory pe...

The present research evaluated both metacognitive and environmental support accounts of age-related changes in the way study time is adapted to task difficulty. The original aim was to examine whether providing environmental support at encoding would allow older adults to adjust their study time to the task difficulty by using effective encoding st...

This study explored age-related differences in the use of metacognitive judgment to allocate extra study time according to the perceived difficulty of a learning task. The task difficulty was varied by manipulating the encoding condition which entailed either generating or reading paired associates. Perceived difficulty was measured by the global p...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of advanced age on self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses, and whether this effect can be predicted by executive functioning. A sample of 194 participants aged 21 to 80 divided into three age groups (21-40, 41-60, 61-80) completed the two strategy scales of the Metamemory in Adul...

This experiment was designed to explore the impact of age and amount of retrieval support on episodic memory and its electrophysiological correlates. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while young and older participants performed a word-stem cued-recall task in a low-support condition (LSC) in which the stem was composed of three letters...

Executive functioning and memory impairment have been demonstrated in adults with depression. Executive functions and memory are related, mainly when the memory tasks require controlled processes (attentional resource demanding processes)--that is, when a low cognitive support (external aid) is provided. A cross-sectional study was carried out on 4...

During the past decade, research on false memories, as the false recognitions (FR), has exploded. However, the large data is currently segmented according to the experimental techniques used to elicit FR. The present work proposed an theoretical and empirical overview for two paradigms inducing FR: 1. the DRM paradigm or derived tasks inducing the...

During the past decade, research on false memories, as the false recognitions (FR), has exploded. However, the large data is currently segmented according to the experimental techniques used to elicit FR. The present work proposed an theoretical and empirical overview for two paradigms inducing FR: 1. the DRM paradigm or derived tasks inducing the...

This research investigated the effect of divided attention at encoding on feeling-of-knowing (FOK). Participants had to learn a 60 word-pair list under two experimental conditions, one with full attention (FA) and one with divided attention (DA). After that, they were administered episodic FOK tasks with a cued-recall phase, a FOK phase and a recog...

The first goal of this experiment was to examine the effect of age on recall and clustering across three successive trials. Sixty-two young (age 20–40 years) and 62 elderly (age 60–80 years) adults learnt a categorised word list for subsequent recall. A clustering index was computed to assess organisational strategy. Results showed that elderly adu...