Activating Aging Stereotypes Increases Source Recollection Confusions in Older Adults: Effect at Encoding but Not...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience of Aging

Background:

• Stereotype threat negatively impacts older adults' cognitive performance, particularly episodic memory.
• Previous research has not distinguished between stereotype activation at encoding versus retrieval.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the differential effects of activating aging stereotypes at encoding versus retrieval on older adults' recollection accuracy.
• To examine stereotype effects on metacognition and secondary cognitive tasks.

Main Methods:

• Older adults performed a word-judgment task (encoding) followed by a recollection task (retrieval).
• Participants were exposed to either aging stereotype-activating or neutral passages before encoding or before retrieval.
• Metacognitive beliefs and performance on working memory and general knowledge tasks were assessed.

Main Results:

• Stereotype activation significantly increased recollection confusion scores when activated at encoding, but not at retrieval.
• Participants in the stereotype condition reported greater perceived cognitive decline.
• No reliable impact of stereotype activation was found on metacognitive assessments or secondary task performance.

Conclusions:

• Explicitly activating aging stereotypes during the encoding phase can lead to increased false recollections in older adults.
• The findings suggest stereotype threat may impair memory encoding processes.
• Stereotype activation's influence on global metacognition may be independent of its effect on recollection accuracy.