The temporal dynamics of gist and perceptual encodings in younger and older adults
| dc.contributor.author | Lawrance, Anna K. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-04-25T15:13:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-04-25T15:13:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Episodic memories can vary in detail from more gist-like (e.g., bumping into a friend at a coffee shop) to perceptual (e.g., seeing Rob at Moka-House)—with older adults generally forming more gist-based associations. Previous work has found that gist-associations form first, followed by perceptual-associations with more encoding time. This study examined the timing of gist and perceptual encodings in younger and older adults through an incidental encoding task where participants judged the belonging of objects in scenes (e.g., kettle in a kitchen). To assess the temporal nature of gist and perceptual encodings, we varied the response window at encoding to encourage gist-encodings in certain blocks (e.g., 1-2s for judgment) and perceptual-encodings in others (e.g., 4-6s for judgment). Following encoding, participants completed an implicit retrieval task, which followed the same task structure as encoding. However, during retrieval, participants were instructed to make their judgments as quickly as possible. At retrieval, pairs were either intact (i.e., same scene-object pairs as in encoding); new (i.e., new scenes and objects); or recombined—semantically-related or -unrelated to encoding pairs. Our implicit-based measure of memory will aid in determining the amount of encoding time required by older adults to form perceptual-based associations—by comparing reaction time at retrieval for intact and related pairs—and whether these time constraints on association-type may vary by age group. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Undergraduate | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA) | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/22015 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University Of Victoria | |
| dc.subject | associative memory | |
| dc.subject | cognitive neuroscience | |
| dc.subject | perceptual representation | |
| dc.subject | episodic memory | |
| dc.subject | cognitive aging | |
| dc.title | The temporal dynamics of gist and perceptual encodings in younger and older adults | |
| dc.type | Poster |