[Ecologic validity of gerontopsychologic memory research]

Developmental memory research has to consider the role of the recall-material in the context of the learner's life situation. This is a prerequisite for ecological validity. An indicator of such age-specific and achievement relevant context differences is suggested to be the degree of "affection" and "surprise" induced by the particular learning event. The importance of both variables becomes obvious in a study by Brown and Kulick (1977) on long-term memory for context-information of realworld events: recall is proven to be dependent upon the interaction of the experienced "affection" and "surprise". In their study the authors do not control the variable "surprise" explicitly. Their hypothesis of interaction therefore remained unproved. This interaction is empirically studied here. At the same time the hypothesis that recall is dependent on the emotional value of the event is also examined. Two groups participated in the study, 65 students of psychology, age 20 to 42, and 60 seniors, age 60 to 84. The recall of context-information associated with the events of the private and public world, the scores of the experienced degree of affection and surprise, as well as the emotional evaluation of the particular event were measured. The results confirm the hypothesis of interaction: The factor "surprise" has a significant effect only under conditions of high scored "'affection". The main effect of the factor "affection" is significant, whereas no effect for emotional evaluation was discovered.