An episodic specificity induction enhances means-end problem solving in young and older adults.

Episodic memory plays an important role not only in remembering past experiences, but also in constructing simulations of future experiences and solving means-end social problems. We recently found that an episodic specificity induction-brief training in recollecting details of past experiences-enhances performance of young and older adults on memory and imagination tasks. Here we tested the hypothesis that this specificity induction would also positively impact a means-end problem-solving task on which age-related changes have been linked to impaired episodic memory. Young and older adults received the specificity induction or a control induction before completing a means-end problem-solving task, as well as memory and imagination tasks. Consistent with previous findings, older adults provided fewer relevant steps on problem solving than did young adults, and their responses also contained fewer internal (i.e., episodic) details across the 3 tasks. There was no difference in the number of other (e.g., irrelevant) steps on problem solving or external (i.e., semantic) details generated on the 3 tasks as a function of age. Critically, the specificity induction increased the number of relevant steps and internal details (but not other steps or external details) that both young and older adults generated in problem solving compared with the control induction, as well as the number of internal details (but not external details) generated for memory and imagination. Our findings support the idea that episodic retrieval processes are involved in means-end problem solving, extend the range of tasks on which a specificity induction targets these processes, and show that the problem-solving performance of older adults can benefit from a specificity induction as much as that of young adults.

[1]  M. C. Smith,et al.  Adult age-group differences in recall for the literal and interpretive meanings of narrative text. , 1997, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[2]  Matthew G. Rhodes,et al.  False Remembering in the Aged , 2006 .

[3]  Arthur P. Shimamura,et al.  Remembering the Past , 2014 .

[4]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[5]  J. Williams,et al.  Retrieval of autobiographical memories: The mechanisms and consequences of truncated search , 2006, Cognition & emotion.

[6]  Lorraine Hope,et al.  Enhancing older adults' eyewitness memory for present and future events with the Self-Administered Interview. , 2014, Psychology and aging.

[7]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Age differences in problem-solving style: the role of emotional salience. , 1995, Psychology and aging.

[8]  W. Thornton,et al.  Age differences in everyday problem solving , 2013 .

[9]  A. Wells,et al.  The Relationship Between Problem-Solving and Autobiographical Memory in Parasuicide Patients , 1997, Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy.

[10]  B. Dritschel,et al.  Role of autobiographical memory in social problem solving and depression. , 1996, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[11]  D. Mast.  Effects of Imagery , 1986 .

[12]  A. Caspi,et al.  Everyday problem solving in adulthood and old age. , 1987, Psychology and aging.

[13]  M. Lezak.  Neuropsychological assessment, 3rd ed. , 1995 .

[14]  Alana T. Wong,et al.  Age-Related Changes in the Episodic Simulation of Future Events , 2008, Psychological science.

[15]  Morris Moscovitch,et al.  The nature and time‐course of medial temporal lobe contributions to semantic retrieval: An fMRI study on verbal fluency , 2012, Hippocampus.

[16]  Phoebe E. Bailey,et al.  Older adults have greater difficulty imagining future rather than atemporal experiences. , 2012, Psychology and aging.

[17]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Perceiving, remembering, and communicating structure in events. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[18]  C. Marmar,et al.  The impact of perceived self-efficacy on mental time travel and social problem solving , 2012, Consciousness and Cognition.

[19]  R. N. Spreng,et al.  Default network modulation and large-scale network interactivity in healthy young and old adults. , 2012, Cerebral cortex.

[20]  G. Winocur,et al.  Aging and autobiographical memory: dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. , 2002, Psychology and aging.

[21]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Age differences in the perception of hierarchical structure in events , 2011, Memory & cognition.

[22]  L. Hasher,et al.  Directed ignoring: Inhibitory regulation of working memory. , 1994 .

[23]  G. Winocur,et al.  Differential Contributions of Executive and Episodic Memory Functions to Problem Solving in Younger and Older Adults , 2013, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[24]  Depression and social problem solving. , 1992, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[25]  B. Dritschel,et al.  The effects of imagery on problem-solving ability and autobiographical memory. , 2012, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[26]  D. Schacter,et al.  Age-related neural changes in autobiographical remembering and imagining , 2011, Neuropsychologia.

[27]  Ulman Lindenberger,et al.  Cognitive aging: is there a dark side to environmental support? , 2014, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[28]  D. Schacter,et al.  Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future in the Elderly , 2012, Gerontology.

[29]  R. Fisher,et al.  Memory-Enhancing Techniques for Investigative Interviewing: The Cognitive Interview , 1992 .

[30]  M. Conway,et al.  Autobiographical Memory Specificity Predicts Social Problem-Solving Ability in Old and Young Adults , 2007, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[31]  K. Szpunar.  Episodic Future Thought , 2010, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[32]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Cognitive Ageing and Psychological Growth , 1982, Ageing and Society.

[33]  Christian A. Meissner,et al.  The Cognitive Interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years. , 2010 .

[34]  R. Bryant,et al.  Social problem solving in complicated grief. , 2010, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[35]  D. Schacter,et al.  The cognitive neuroscience of constructive memory: remembering the past and imagining the future , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[36]  L. Abrams,et al.  Do younger and older adults' communicative goals influence off-topic speech in autobiographical narratives? , 2009, Psychology and aging.

[37]  R. N. Spreng,et al.  The Future of Memory: Remembering, Imagining, and the Brain , 2012, Neuron.

[38]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Goals and Everyday Problem Solving: Examining the Link between Age-Related Goals and Problem-Solving Strategy Use , 2008, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition.

[39]  Catriona M. Morrison,et al.  Episodic Future Thinking: Linking Neuropsychological Performance with Episodic Detail in Young and Old Adults , 2013, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[40]  F. Craik,et al.  On the Transfer of Information from Temporary to Permanent Memory [and Discussion] , 1983 .

[41]  K. Demyttenaere,et al.  Reduced specificity of autobiographical memory: a mediator between rumination and ineffective social problem-solving in major depression? , 2005, Journal of affective disorders.

[42]  B. Dritschel,et al.  The effects of specific retrieval instruction on social problem-solving in depression. , 2001, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[43]  Daniel Cervone,et al.  Perceived self-efficacy and everyday problem solving among young and older adults. , 2003, Psychology and aging.

[44]  Daniel Cervone,et al.  Everyday Challenges in Context: The Influence of Contextual Factors on Everyday Problem Solving Among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults , 2010, Experimental aging research.

[45]  J. Ahern,et al.  Remembering the Past , 2013, The Annals of pharmacotherapy.

[46]  M. Moscovitch,et al.  Episodic Memory and Event Construction in Aging and Amnesia. , 2012 .

[47]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Age differences in emotion-regulation strategies in handling everyday problems. , 2004, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[48]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Goals and everyday problem solving: manipulating goal preferences in young and older adults. , 2010, Developmental psychology.

[49]  D. Schacter,et al.  Episodic simulation of past and future events in older adults: Evidence from an experimental recombination task. , 2010, Psychology and aging.

[50]  Andrew Mienaltowski.  Everyday problem solving across the adult life span: solution diversity and efficacy , 2011, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[51]  R. Bryant,et al.  Social problem solving and autobiographical memory in posttraumatic stress disorder. , 2008, Behaviour research and therapy.

[52]  M. Moscovitch,et al.  Episodic memory processes mediated by the medial temporal lobes contribute to open-ended problem solving , 2011, Neuropsychologia.

[53]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Age differences in everyday problem-solving effectiveness: older adults select more effective strategies for interpersonal problems. , 2007, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[54]  D. Schacter,et al.  Characterizing Age-related Changes in Remembering the past and Imagining the Future Experiment 1 , 2022 .

[55]  M. Corballis,et al.  Episodic foresight and aging. , 2014, Psychology and aging.

[56]  Daniel L Schacter,et al.  Constructive episodic simulation: dissociable effects of a specificity induction on remembering, imagining, and describing in young and older adults. , 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[57]  D. Schacter.  Adaptive constructive processes and the future of memory. , 2012, The American psychologist.

[58]  T. Arbuckle,et al.  Aging, inhibition, and verbosity. , 1993, Journal of gerontology.

[59]  Tara L. Johnson,et al.  Everyday problem solving , 2010 .

[60]  D. Schacter,et al.  On the nature of medial temporal lobe contributions to the constructive simulation of future events , 2009, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[61]  Rachel J. Anderson,et al.  Social Problem-Solving and Depressive Symptom Vulnerability: The Importance of Real-Life Problem-Solving Performance , 2011, Cognitive Therapy and Research.

[62]  S. Klein,et al.  The complex act of projecting oneself into the future. , 2013, Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science.

[63]  F. Blanchard-Fields,et al.  Everyday problem solving across the adult life span: influence of domain specificity and cognitive appraisal. , 1997, Psychology and aging.

[64]  F. Blanchard-Fields.  Everyday Problem Solving and Emotion , 2007 .

[65]  W. Sturm,et al.  Neuropsychological assessment , 2007, Journal of Neurology.