Aging and Event Segmentation

Abstract

Episodic memory, our memory for events in our lives, typically becomes less detailed and more prone to error with advancing age. An extensive literature exists investigating age-related memory decline using simple stimuli (e.g., words, pictures), but fewer studies have used naturalistic stimuli (e.g. narratives, films) which may help to understand how age affects memory for more complex events. In the current thesis, I employ concepts from the event cognition literature to propose that age differences in event processing at encoding is an important factor in age-related episodic memory decline. To test this, I first used a memory-based behavioural measure of the segmentation of events in a movie to examine age differences in the role of event distinctiveness in memory performance. I then used electroencephalography (EEG) to test implicitly whether older and younger adults differ in their perception of event boundaries and/or the distinctiveness of those boundaries (i.e., the degree of neural change moving from one event to the next). Across these experiments, I show that the strength (or distinctiveness), but not necessarily the location, of event boundaries was important for memory performance, especially for older adults. Leveraging these findings, I then evaluated a potential intervention to improve event memory in older adults which was intended to create more distinct event boundaries while reinforcing memory through a process similar to retrieval practice. The effectiveness of this intervention, paired with our findings that event boundary distinctiveness predicts memory performance in older adults, supports the hypothesis that the organization of continuous experiences during memory encoding plays an important role in episodic memory performance, particularly in older adults.