A three years follow-up study on metamemory of elderly people

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24700262
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: MASUMOTO Kouhei 神戸大学, 人間発達環境学研究科, 准教授 (20402985)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 記憶 / 高齢者 / メタ記憶 / 記憶モニタリング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Several researches have reported that it is difficult for elderly to evaluate appropriately their memory ability and memory performance. There is a possibility that their dissociation between self-evaluation of memory (metamemory) and memory performance causes memory problems of their daily life, because it disturbs spontaneous copying for their memory decline. In this research, in order to explore the factors that influence accuracy of metamemory for elderly, we conducted two cross-sectional and one longitudinal experiments. These experiments showed that 1) the problems of self-evaluation on occurrence frequency of memory in daily living for elderly was same level of evaluation for young adult, 2) metamemory of elderly did not reflect the memory decline with age, and 3) depression was the most influential factor in the accuracy of metamemory among their cognitive performances and degree of memory decline with age.

Free Research Field

認知心理学