Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Published In

Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development

Keywords

Stress, Aging, Older adults, Eyewitness memory, Misinformation paradigm

Abstract

Acute psychological stress commonly occurs in young and older adults’ lives. Though several studies have examined the influence of stress on how young adults learn new information, the present study is the first to directly examine these effects in older adults. Fifty older adults (M age = 71.9) were subjected to either stress induction or a control task before learning two types of information: a short video and a series of pictures. Twenty-four hours later, they were exposed to misleading information about the video and then completed memory tests for the video and pictures. Heart rate and cortisol measures suggest that a physiological stress response was successfully induced. Though pre-encoding stress had little impact on memory accuracy, stress did influence errors of omission on the cued recall test for the video. Findings are discussed in the context of previous research examining the effects of stress on memory in older adults.

Grant Information

This research was supported by a Tufts Collaborates! grant and Faculty Research Award awarded to Ayanna K. Thomas from Tufts University, Medford, MA.

DOI

10.1080/13825585.2018.1524438

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition on Oct. 3, 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13825585.2018.1524438.

Rights

© Taylor & Francis.

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