ISSN : 1229-0718
It has been postulated that as people get older, the episodic information in our auto biographical memory should be deteriorated faster than the semantic aspect of it. To examine the thesis, the present study measured the probed retrieval performances of young and old group in their autobiographical memory using a technique called, Autobiographical Interview(AI). It was also examined if the probed retrieval was in any way effected by the emotional valence of the events recalled. The results showed that: (1) There was clear age deficits in episodic memory but not in semantic memory. (2) Retrieval support helped young adults more in recalling episodic memories than older adults and this trend was quite visible in the category of time, perception and thought/emotion. (3) There was no evidence of the advantage in recalling the emotional events in both episodic and semantic aspects of autobiographical memory. (4) The recall for negative events in older adults interacted with rehearsal. It can be safely argued that the nature of tools and techniques administered to study cognitive aging will determine the level of validity of the data collected.
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