Source memory, aging and culture

The present study investigates the possibility that culture affects age differences in context memory. There is evidence that East-Asians process scenes more holistically and show better context memory than Americans.

We examined evidence for differences in binding source to context in young and old Americans and native Chinese. We hypothesized that age effects on source memory could be mitigated due to these cultural differences in processing style.

During incidental encoding, younger and older Chinese and Americans watched a video with statements spoken by four distinct speakers. After a brief interval, participants identified source (experiment 1) or item and source (experiment 2).

We observed substantial age-related deficits in source memory in both cultures but little evidence for cultural differences in source or item memory.

Basic source memory processes operate similarly across culture and age. The source of holistic processing differences observed between cultures may occur in cognitive operations that are more highly bound to a social context.