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Updated: Jan 2, 2026
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A Real-world What-Where-When Memory Test
Published on: May 16, 2017
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Load effect on what-where-when memory in younger and older adults
Joenilton Saturnino Cazé Da Silva1, Flávio Freitas Barbosa2, Égina Karoline Gonçalves Da Fonsêca1
1Laboratory of aging and neuropsychological disorder, Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraiba , João Pessoa, Brazil.
Summary
Older adults show reduced episodic memory recall compared to young adults, especially with more items. Memory recall efficiency depends on how much information is encoded.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Gerontology
Background:
- Episodic memory (EM) integrates event details (What, Where, When).
- Hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are crucial for EM.
- Aging effects on EM, particularly object quantity's influence, are understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how object quantity affects episodic memory recall in young and older adults.
- To compare memory performance across different information loads (2, 4, 6 items).
Main Methods:
- Utilized a What-Where-When Task assessing episodic memory.
- Participants included young and older adults.
- Memory recall was tested with varying numbers of items (2, 4, 6) in specific contexts.
Main Results:
- Young adults outperformed older adults across most tasks and item loads.
- Group differences in performance widened as item quantity increased, stabilizing at 4 items.
- Recall for "What" information showed similar performance between age groups.
Conclusions:
- Episodic memory efficiency is influenced by the quantity of information encoded.
- Aging significantly impacts episodic memory recall, particularly with increased item complexity.
- The What-Where-When Task effectively reveals age-related differences in episodic memory encoding.
Keywords:
Healthy agingepisodic memoryintegrative memoryload memorytreasure-hunt taskwhat-where-when paradigmMore Related Videos
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