Lifespan accumulated differences in semantic memory structure contribute to increases in episodic false memories
Abstract
Semantic memory grows across the lifespan with experience, scaffolding episodic memory processes while potentially contributing to memory errors when memory representations overlap. Prior work has attributed age-related increases in false recognition memory to executive dysfunction, but little is known about how lifelong semantic knowledge accumulation affects these episodic errors. In the current study, we recorded EEG while younger (n = 36) and older adults (n = 41) completed an episodic memory task in which study list-lure similarity was systematically varied using distributional model-derived measures of semantic similarity. We found older adults’ endorsement of lures was less dependent on semantic similarity than those of younger adults. Older adults also demonstrated reduced coupling of neural similarity to model-derived semantic similarity, and reduced encoding-retrieval reinstatement for accurate lure rejections. Together, these findings suggest that age-related increases in false memory reflect both altered semantic representational structure and reduced source monitoring, highlighting how semantic knowledge accumulated across the lifespan may simultaneously support episodic memory while increasing susceptibility to semantically driven distortions.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Diarylethenes for Memories and Switches
- Long-Term Potentiation and Memory
- Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices
- The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Memory
- Memory aging and brain maintenance
- Effector and Memory CTL Differentiation
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.