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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) for Memory Enhancement
Published on: September 18, 2021
Aging, source memory, and misrecollections
Chad S Dodson1, Sameer Bawa, Scott D Slotnick
1Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400, USA. cdodson@virginia.edu
Abstract:
The authors propose an illusory recollection account of why cognitive aging is associated with episodic memory deficits. After listening to statements presented by either a female or a male speaker, older adults were prone to misrecollecting past events. The authors' illusory recollection account is instantiated in a new illusory recollection signal detection model that provides a better fit of older adults' data than does the standard signal detection model. They observed that age-related differences in source memory (as measured by source d' scores) virtually disappear after accounting for the occurrence of illusory recollections. These data suggest that age-related source memory impairments are not due to older adults' remembering less diagnostic source information and having to guess more. Instead, older adults appear to misremember past events more often than younger adults.
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