The Effect Of Color Consistency On Episodic Memory In Young And Older Adults

Prior knowledge refers to the knowledge that has been stored in our episodic memory from previous learning or life experiences.Color knowledge is a typical form of prior knowledge,which refers to the knowledge of the typical color of an object’s surface(e.g.,strawberries are red).Color knowledge can be distinguished into visual color knowledge and semantic color knowledge,which are activated by perceptual processing and conceptual processing,respectively.Most previous studies have explored the influence of color knowledge on memory using visual images,while research on the impact of semantic color knowledge on episodic memory is limited.It is also unclear whether the influence of color knowledge on source memory retrieval is based on familiarity or recollection.Given that with age,perceptual processing abilities decline while semantic processing abilities remain relatively intact,and that older adults rely more on prior knowledge than young adults,this study used ERP technology to investigate the effects of visual/semantic color knowledge on episodic memory in both young and older adults,and compared the differential impact of these two types of color knowledge on episodic memory in young and older adults.Experiment 1 used a color-consistent/inconsistent picture material and a source memory multi-key paradigm to investigate the effects of visual color knowledge on episodic memory in young and older adults.Behavioral results showed that visual color knowledge enhanced item and source memory performance in both young and older adults.Specifically,for color-consistent pictures,both young and older adults showed better item memory performance and higher source memory accuracy.It was found that older adults were more influenced by visual color knowledge in item memory performance than young adults,as evidenced by the larger differences in item memory performance between color-consistent and inconsistent pictures for older adults.ERP results showed that young adults could extract the backgroun dinformation of color-consistent pictures through familiarity only,while the background retrieval for color-inconsistent pictures required recollection.In contrast,older adults needed a similar level of recollection to retrieve the background information of both color-consistent and inconsistent pictures.Experiment 2 investigated the effects of semantic color knowledge on episodic memory and source memory in young and older adults using a color-consistent/inconsistent word material and a multi-key paradigm.The behavioral results showed that semantic color knowledge facilitated item and source memory performance in both young and older adults,and had a greater impact on item memory than visual color knowledge.Specifically,for color-consistent words,both young and older adults had higher item and source memory accuracy.The ERP results showed that in source retrieval,both young and older adults had to rely on recollection to extract the background information of color-consistent/inconsistent words,and retrieving the background of color-inconsistent words required greater voluntary recollection effort than retrieving the background of color-consistent words.Conclusion: Visual color knowledge can enhance item and source memory for color-consistent pictures in both young and older adults,with a greater impact on item memory in older adults.Visual color knowledge can modulate source memory in young adults by affecting recollection.Semantic color knowledge can facilitate item and source memory for color-consistent words in both young and older adults,and has a greater impact on item memory than visual color knowledge in both age groups.Semantic color knowledge can modulate source memory in young and older adults by affecting the recollection process.