Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

D C Park

Publications and source records attributed to D C Park.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Effects of contextual integration on recall of pictures by older adults.

This study investigated age-related differences in the ability to utilize integrative relationships between target and context as a memory support by directly manipulating the relationship between a target picture and context. We hypothesized that as the active integration required between target and cue increased, age differences would increase. Old and young adults were instructed to remember target pictures, each presented with a pictorial cue. The cue/target relationship was one of three types: categorically related (high integration condition), visually interacting (high integration condition), or unrelated and noninteracting (low integration condition). Cued recall of the targets was tested. The results indicated that the poorly integrated target-context relationship produced the largest age difference, supporting the integration hypothesis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Effects of labeling techniques on memory and comprehension of prescription information in young and old adults.

We conducted a study to determine the effects of presenting prescription information in a pictorial compared to a verbal format on comprehension and memory in young and old adults. Both comprehension and memory for drug information were studied as a function of age and presentation method. Participants received prescription instructions on actual medicine bottles in one of two formats: verbal instructions only, or verbal instructions mixed with pictorial representations. Results indicated that (a) younger adults' memory for prescription information was facilitated by the mixed instructions, but that mixed instructions appeared to hamper older adults' memory for prescription information; (b) younger adults recalled more information overall relative to older adults across both presentation conditions; and (c) older adults were less able to comprehend prescription information relative to younger adults. Results suggest that well-organized verbal prescription labels are more facilitative for the elderly and that additional efforts must be undertaken to improve the clarity of labeling on prescription drugs.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Age differences in memory for concrete and abstract pictures.

There is considerable experimental literature showing that memory for complex pictures is relatively insensitive to age. Previous research has shown that young and old adults do not differ in their ability to recognize complex scenes. Other studies, however, using simple line drawings, do find age differences. This experiment investigated the possibility that the failure to find age differences with memory for complex pictures occurs because of memory support provided at encoding and retrieval by both the degree of visual detail (complex perceptual information) and the degree of propositional content (linguistic meaningfulness) that are represented in complex scenes. Pictures were shown to young and old subjects that differed in visual detail (complex vs simple) and propositional content (concrete vs abstract). The results indicated that age differences in picture memory emerge if the pictures are either deprived of visual detail or reduced in propositional content.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Metamemories of memory researchers.

In the present study, a metamemory questionnaire was completed by three groups of individuals: memory research psychologists who attended a small international convention on everyday memory processes in the aged, academic psychologists with a limited knowledge of the memory literature, and nonpsychologist college professors. There was little evidence that memory psychologists reported using strategies to remember things that were different from the strategies of other academics. The most used and most recommended technique for remembering was to write things down, followed by general internal mnemonic systems such as organization and rehearsal. The least used and least recommended strategies for all three groups were formal mnemonic systems, such as the peg-word system or the method of loci.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Effects of age and a divided attention task presented during encoding and retrieval on memory.

The present studies were designed to examine age differences in memory when attention was divided during encoding, retrieval, or at both times. In Experiment 1, Ss studied categorized words while performing a number-monitoring task during encoding, retrieval, or at both times. Older Ss' free recall and clustering performance declined more than that of young Ss when attention was divided at encoding, but there was no similar age interaction when divided attention occurred at retrieval. In Experiment 2, the task demands at retrieval were increased by using a fast-paced, cued-recall task. The results remained unchanged from Experiment 1. Again, an age interaction occurred with divided attention at encoding but not at retrieval. These results were unexpected, given the emphasis in the memory-aging literature on increased difficulty of retrieval by older adults. The findings pose difficulties for limited processing resource views of age differences in memory.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Age-related differences in three-dimensional spatial memory.

This study focused on understanding age differences in spatial memory within a framework relating stimulus qualities to performance. It was hypothesized that elderly adults' spatial memory would be more disadvantaged, relative to young adults, with abstract, meaningless objects than with everyday objects. The study examined differences in memory for the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensional planes of space in a 4 x 4 x 4 plexiglass cube. College students and community-dwelling adults studied and later reconstructed a three-dimensional arrangement of common or abstract objects located in a compartmentalized cube so that relocation errors could be independently measured within the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensions. The principal findings were that (a) the magnitude of object displacement in the relocation task was greater for older adults; (b) young and elderly adults differed primarily in terms of large rather than small displacement errors; (c) the locations of meaningless items were more difficult to remember for both age groups; and (d) displacement errors in the vertical dimension were greater than the horizontal and depth dimensions, although this effect was only significant with meaningful items.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Quality of instructions on prescription drug labels: effects on memory and comprehension in young and old adults.

We examined both comprehension of and memory for information on prescription labels as a function of age, memory load, and study time across three experiments with young and old adults. We found that older adults consistently manifested poorer recall of prescription information than young adults; age effects occurred even when participants received unlimited study time; and both young and old adults had substantial difficulty comprehending drug information as it is presented from a pharmacy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Forgetting of pictures over a long retention interval in young and older adults.

Young and older adults were presented with pictures for study. Their recognition of the information was tested at five retention intervals: immediately, and 48 hr, 1 week, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks later. The main finding of interest was that picture recognition did not show an age-related decline until the 1-week retention interval.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Age differences in encoding specificity.

In two experiments (one under full attention, the other under divided attention), old and young adults were presented with a cued recall task in an encoding specificity paradigm. Targets and associated cues were either pictures or matched words, and there was either a strong or weak semantic relationship between targets and cues. Additionally, cues presented at recall were either the same as or different from those presented at encoding, resulting in four encoding cue--retrieval cue combinations: (a) strong encoding cue and (same) strong retrieval cue; (b) weak encoding cue and (same) weak retrieval cue; (c) weak encoding cue and (different) strong retrieval cue; (d) strong encoding cue and (different) weak retrieval cue. For the most part, the results revealed strong encoding specificity effects for both age groups, as both old and young participants recalled more when the same cues were presented at encoding and retrieval than when different cues were presented. However, when elderly participants received verbal cues under divided attention conditions, evidence for general encoding rather than encoding specificity occurred. Results are discussed in terms of both the encoding specificity principle as well as a more process-oriented interpretation.

Aged↗
PubMed1987

Perceptual elaboration and memory in older adults.

This experiment investigated the effects of perceptual elaboration on the memory performance of 15 older (M = 70.4 years) and 15 younger adults (M = 25.2 years). Participants were presented tachistoscopically with line drawings that varied in contour completeness. As predicted, both old and young persons' identification response times for those drawings increased with decreases in contour completeness, indicating increased elaborative processing (Kunen et al., 1979). Moreover, a moderate decrease in contour completeness was associated with increased recall of the drawings for both age groups, although older persons identified the drawings more slowly and recalled fewer drawings than did younger persons. These findings complement those of Park et al. (1986) and demonstrate that older persons engage in active cognitive elaboration of pictorial stimuli when those stimuli are presented in such a way as to encourage elaboration.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Cue utilization and encoding specificity in picture recognition by older adults.

According to the encoding specificity principle, memory is best when encoding and retrieval conditions are compatible. Some researchers have suggested that older adults encode information in a general fashion and are less sensitive to the specific contextual aspects of a memory situation due to limited processing resources. We investigated the hypothesis that age interacts with encoding specificity. Young and old adults studied target pictures in the presence or absence of pictorial cues factorially varied at encoding and retrieval. If the older adults used the specific cuing information differently from the younger adults, age should have interacted with the encoding and retrieval variables. The results provided no evidence for such an interaction and indicated that both ages showed evidence of encoding specificity. To investigate the role of processing resources in encoding specificity, old and young adults also studied the pictures while simultaneously performing a digit-monitoring task. The divided-attention manipulation also did not interact with age, as both young and old adults showed encoding specificity effects of comparable magnitude in both control and divided-attention conditions.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Memory for pictures: does an age-related decline exist?

In the present experiments, the effects of varying detail on memory were examined. In Experiment 1, pictorial embellishment was varied by presenting old and young adults with normal photographs, high-contrast photographs, or line drawings, and testing their memory immediately and 4 weeks later. All of the subjects did best with the most elaborate pictures (normal photographs), and old subjects remembered as well as young at the immediate but not at the delayed interval. In Experiment 2, detail was varied by adding background to line drawings of a central object. Subjects of both ages profited from enhanced background detail, and there were no differences in memory as a function of age. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2, except that subjects studied the pictures under divided attention conditions. Again, subjects of both age recognized elaborate pictures best, and no significant age differences emerged. The studies suggest that old and young adults profit from visual embellishment and that memory for meaningful pictures remains relatively intact with age.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Older adults' memory for the color of pictures and words.

Young and older adults were presented line drawings or matched words for study that were colored either red, green, yellow, or blue. Half of the research participants were instructed to remember the item and its color (intentional condition), whereas the other half studied only the item (incidental condition). Participants indicated their recognition of items and the color they believed positively recognized items were, regardless of their initial encoding instructions. Data analyses yielded evidence for a decline in color memory in old compared with young adults, particularly with respect to pictures. The color of pictures was generally better remembered than the color of words, particularly in the incidental memory conditions. The discussion suggests the effort required to remember color varies as a function of the stimulus with which it is associated.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Memory for two types of spatial location: effects of instructions, age, and format.

Three experiments, with old persons (59-80 years) and college students (17-30 years) in Experiments 1 and 2 and with college students (17-24 years) in Experiment 3, investigated the differences between two types of spatial location memory: memory for the location of individual items in an array and memory for occupied, as opposed to unoccupied, locations in an array. Young persons performed better than old persons on both measures of location memory. However, an effect of instructions (intentional vs. incidental for spatial location) was consistently obtained for memory for occupied, as opposed to unoccupied, locations, whereas no effect of instructions was obtained for memory for individual item locations. In addition, item location memory was superior for objects as opposed to matched words (Experiment 2), whereas occupied location memory was not affected by presentation format (Experiments 2 and 3). These differences indicate that spatial memory is a complex process whose properties are affected by variations in stimulus characteristics and task demands. It was concluded that the distinction of Hasher and Zacks (1979) between automatic and effortful processes is not adequate for understanding spatial memory. A recognition of the complex nature of spatial processing suggests a resolution of discrepancies in the literature based upon differences in stimulus characteristics, task demands, and the effectiveness of task-appropriate mnemonic strategies.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Picture memory in older adults: effects of contextual detail at encoding and retrieval.

In the present study, contextual detail was manipulated in a stimulus set by reproducing cartoon pictures intact or with much of the background obliterated. Young and older adults were presented cartoon slides both with and without contextual detail for study. During recognition, presence or absence of background was crossed factorially with its presence or absence during encoding, and participants indicated whether they recognized the cartoon. Analysis of d' scores indicated that old and young adults evidenced encoding specificity effects of comparable magnitude. Additionally, young people recognized pictures with contextual detail better than pictures without detail, whereas the reverse appeared to be true for older individuals. The implications of these findings with respect to those of Craik and Simon are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Memory for pictures, words, and spatial location in older adults: evidence for pictorial superiority.

In the present study the spatial location of picture and word stimuli was varied across four quadrants of photographic slides. Young and old people received either pictures or words to study and were told to remember either just the item or the item and its location. Recognition memory for items and memory for spatial location were tested. A pictorial superiority effect occurred for both old and young people's item recognition. Additionally, instructions to study position decreased item memory and facilitated position memory in both age groups. Spatial memory was markedly superior for pictures compared with matched words for old and young adults. The results are interpreted within the Hasher and Zacks framework of automatic processing. The implications of the data for designing mnemonic aids for elderly persons are considered.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Effect of encoding instructions on children's spatial and color memory: is there evidence for automaticity?

This experiment is concerned with assessing whether there is evidence for the automatic processing of spatial and color information by children and with the development of control of encoding operations. First, third, and fifth graders viewed pictures of simple objects that varied in color (red or green) and spatial location (left or right). Subjects were instructed to encode (a) only the item, (b) the item and its color, (c) the item and its position, (d) the item, its color, and its position. The data yielded evidence for nonchance incidental memory of spatial, but not color, information. The data also suggested that children at all age levels were able to control their encoding operations similarly, as there was no evidence for an interaction of development with encoding instructions. These findings are discussed with respect to a model for automatic encoding processes and work on memory for central and incidental information.

Child↗