Aging and episodic memory specificity: Evidence challenging a domain-general pattern separation decline.

ABSTRACT: Aging is associated with a decline in episodic memory specificity. This phenomenon has been observed across various memory tasks, such as the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST), where older adults show a heightened tendency to falsely recognize perceptually similar items. While many studies suggest this impairment reflects a generalized reduction in pattern separation, others indicate that older adults may exhibit preserved discrimination abilities for semantic representations. Furthermore, pattern separation accounts also posit that a bias toward pattern completion, a process whereby partial cues reactivate whole representations, occurs with aging. However, the evidence for this shift remains mixed, which may be in part due to how pattern completion is commonly measured. The current study aim

SUBMITTER: Youm A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12643304 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature