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Updated: Mar 19, 2026
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Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
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Aging and memory for temporal order in naturalistic events.
Yining Ding1, Devon R Alperin1, Jeffrey M Zacks1
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis.
Psychology and Aging
|March 17, 2026
Summary
Older adults effectively use background knowledge to remember event sequences in narratives, showing preserved temporal memory organization across the lifespan. Their confidence in memory, however, was less accurate than younger adults.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience of Aging
Background:
- Memory for temporal order is often studied using simple lists, with less known about naturalistic narratives.
- Narratives integrate temporal structure and semantic knowledge, reflecting everyday experience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate age-related differences in learning and retrieving temporal order from hierarchical narratives.
- To examine how semantic knowledge aids memory for event sequences in younger and older adults.
Main Methods:
- Participants (younger and older adults) read narratives with two-level hierarchical structures.
- Memory for temporal order and distance was tested after reading.
- Semantic knowledge's impact on recalling event order was assessed.
Main Results:
- Both age groups benefited from semantic knowledge to recall event order, with older adults showing greater benefits.
- Event-based organization was preserved, as participants recalled events spanning boundaries as more distant.
- Older adults' confidence in their memory was less accurate than younger adults'.
Conclusions:
- The ability to use knowledge of typical activity structures to recall event sequences is robust across adulthood.
- Older adults demonstrate enhanced benefits from semantic knowledge for temporal order memory.
- While event sequencing is preserved, metamemory accuracy differs between age groups.
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