Interactions between memory and executive functions

1. Interactions between memory and executive functions Executive functions: Processes engaged during the manipulation of information in the service of a goal. Age-related impairments in task switching, goal maintenance, inhibition, flexibility, working memory, etc Significant individual differences in executive functions. Understanding and treating age-related memory impairments will require an understanding of the interactions between executive functions and memory.

2. Interactions between memory and executive functions Lee Ryan (UA): Memory and working with memory: The importance of executive functions in effective memory. Dawn Bowers (UF): Executive function, memory, and emotion: Lessons from Parkinson Disease. Barry Setlow (UF): Individual differences in aged rodent models of executive function and decision making. Sara Czaja (UM): Cognition and everyday task performance. Elizabeth Glisky (UA): Improving executive functions through real world interventions: The role of social media.

3. Memory or “working with” memory? What underlies age-related memory problems? • Naveh-Benjamin (2006) Associative memory deficit • Older adults are impaired on associative memory – an inability to bind disparate components of an experience into a single coherent representation. • Moscovitch (2002) “Working with” memory • Older adults are impaired in the use of strategies for efficient encoding, search, retrieval, and evaluation – an impairment in “working with memory”, or the executive functions that manipulate information. • Do older adults have difficulty with encoding (binding), or the retrieval and evaluation of representations once they are created?

4. Exp 1: Binding objects to their contexts Study: Estimate the cost of the object Test: Have you seen the object before? Scene-Scene White-White Scene-White Associative memory view: Object recognition should not be impaired in older adults when context shifts occur.

5. Object recognition is impaired equally for both young and older adults when the context shifts. Young Older Proportion Correct Scene-Scene White-White Scene-White

6. Exp 2: Specific object-context binding or gist? Do older adults bind the specific background to the object, or just the “gist” of a scene along with the object? Study: Estimate the cost of the object Test: Have you seen the object before? Scene-Scene White-White Scene-White

7. Scene-Scene White-White Scene-White New Scene Recombined

8. Young and older adults encode the specific background as well as the “gist” of the background: Same > Similar > New Young Older Proportion Correct

9. Memory or “working with” memory? • Exps 1 and 2: Older adults bind an object to its context (specific and generic) as well as young adults, and that context aids in object recognition. • What about memory tasks that specifically require the retrieval and evaluation of the association that has been created? • Associative memory task – Memory for the pairing of the object and its context • Source memory task – Recollection of the source (context) in which the object was previously seen

10. Exp 3: Memory for the association of objects and their contexts How well can older adults evaluate the pairing of the object and its specific context? Test: Did you see the object in this specific background before? Same Recombined “Yes” “No”

11. Older adults are impaired relative to young adults in evaluating the binding between the object and its background. Young Older Proportion Correct Same Recombined

12. Exp 4: Evaluating the source (context) associated with an object Can older adults access and evaluate information regarding the source of the objects? Test: Did you see this object previously in a scene or on a white background? “White” “Scene” (Same) (Shift)

13. Younger adults are better at judging souce when the context remains the same from study to test, while older adults are not. Young Older Proportion Correct White Scene (Same) (Shift)

14. Memory or working with memory? What underlies age-related memory problems? • Our studies suggest that both young and older adults bind the context (specific and generic) to the object, and that context aids in object recognition. • Older adults are impaired when the task requires them to access and evaluate the quality of the association. • We suggest that executive functions – “working with memory” – will be critical in understanding age-related memory impairments.

15. University of Arizona Executive Functions BatteryAlexander, Glisky, & Ryan Based on a three-factor model (Miyake et al., 2000) • Shifting: Moving flexibly between two tasks or sets of rules • Number-letter (Rogers & Monsell, 1995) • Global-local (Navon, 1977) • Updating: Maintaining and then replacing information • Consonant Updating (Morris & Jones, 1990) • Keep Track (Yntema, 1963) • Inhibition: Overcoming automatic responses • Simon task (Simon, 1990) • Stroop task (Stroop, 1935)

16. McKnight Cognitive Workgroup Gene Alexander (Arizona) Russell Bauer (Gainsville) Dawn Bowers (Gainsville) Elizabeth Glisky (Arizona) Bonnie Levin (Miami) Lee Ryan (Arizona)

17. Interactions between memory and executive functions Lee Ryan (UA): Memory and working with memory: The importance of executive functions in effective memory. Dawn Bowers (UF): Executive function, memory, and emotion: Lessons from Parkinson Disease. Barry Setlow (UF): Individual differences in aged rodent models of executive function and decision making. Sara Czaja (UM): Cognition and everyday task performance. Elizabeth Glisky (UA): Improving executive functions through real world interventions: The role of social media.