Demands on perceptual and mnemonic fidelity are a key determinant of age-related cognitive decline throughout the lifespan.

ABSTRACT: Aging results in less detailed memories, reflecting reduced fidelity of remembered compared to real-world representations. We tested whether poorer representational fidelity across perception, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM) are among the earliest signs of cognitive aging. Our paradigm probed target-lure object mnemonic discrimination and precision of object-location binding. Across the lifespan, cognitive deficits were observed in midlife when detailed stimulus representations were required for perceptual and short/long-term forced choice mnemonic discrimination. A continuous metric of object-location source memory combined with computational modeling demonstrated that errors in STM and LTM in middle-aged adults were largely driven by a loss of precision for retrieved

SUBMITTER: Gellersen HM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10795485 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature