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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
Episodic simulation of past and future events in older adults: Evidence from an experimental recombination task
Donna Rose Addis1, Regina Musicaro, Ling Pan
1Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. d.addis@auckland.ac.nz
Abstract:
We recently reported that older adults generate fewer episodic details than younger adults when remembering past events and when simulating future events. We suggested that the simulation findings reveal an age deficit in recombining episodic details into novel events, but they could also result from older adults "recasting" entire past events as future events. In this study, we used an experimental recombination paradigm to prevent recasting while imagining and to compare imagining the future with imagining the past. Older adults generated fewer episodic details for imagined and recalled events than younger adults, thereby extending the age-related simulation deficit to conditions of recombination.
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