Knowledge is power: The effects of conceptual knowledge on event memory in aging

The formation of an event memory relies on integrating conceptual knowledge with encoded episodic content. Aging comes with an increased reliance on conceptual knowledge when forming event memories, which could contribute to the formation of gist-based memories. Alternatively, conceptual knowledge could serve as a scaffold, enhancing the ability to encode specific memories. To address how conceptual knowledge impacts episodic memory in aging, we conducted two preregistered experiments, where young and older adults encoded events tailored to include concepts with which they had a high or low degree of knowledge. Memory was tested 24 hr later using two recognition tasks, assessing memory for narrative and perceptual information. Results from Experiment 1 suggested that young adults generally benefited from conceptual knowledge, whereas the impact of knowledge on memory performance in older adults was mixed. However, conceptual knowledge differences across conditions were not equated between age groups: Older adults were more familiar with the concepts presented in their low knowledge condition, compared to young adults. In Experiment 2, we revised the stimuli to maximize differences in conceptual knowledge across conditions in both age groups. Following this modification, we found that both young and older adults displayed enhanced memory for specific details and reduced gist-based errors in their high compared to low conceptual knowledge conditions. Although results suggested that conceptual knowledge had a greater benefit on memory for narrative compared to perceptual content in older adults, differences in baseline performance on these tasks may have influenced this effect. Together, our findings suggest that when conceptual information within an event is aligned with knowledge, it can bolster episodic memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).