Presenter: Anisha Adke
Faculty Mentor: Dasa Zeithamova-Demircan
Presentation Type: Poster 43
Primary Research Area: Science
Major: Biology
Funding Source: UROP Mini-Grant, University of Oregon, $1,000
Conceptual and precision memory are two functions of healthy and adaptive memory. Conceptual memory retains the gist of events. Precision memory allows memory of specific perceptual details of events, contrasting them from other similar experiences. Precision and conceptual memory may be differentially important for short-term memory and long-term memory. Long-term memories may have a tendency to retain meaning but lose details. This is adaptive in daily life, but may be a problem in certain situations, like during eyewitness testimonies, where details rather than generalities are essential. Loss of memory precision also characterizes normal aging, but it is unclear whether this occurs because details are lost in long-term memory or they are not encoded in short-term memory. The purpose of the study was to determine if memories transform from perceptual to conceptual over time and identify the effect of aging on this relationship.
Subjects’ memory were tested for general meaning (conceptual memory) or specific details (perceptual memory) either immediately (short-term) or after thirty minutes (long-term). Preliminary results show that short-term memory supports quicker and more accurate judgments of perceptual details, whereas long-term memory supports quicker and more accurate judgments of meaning. Future testing will assess whether older adults are quicker and more accurate in judgments of meaning in both long and short-term memory, suggesting that older adults process events on a conceptual level even when information is maintained over very short delays.