Investigating subjective use of self-initiated internal memory strategy use across the healthy adult lifespan

Abstract

It has been proposed that a decline in memory strategy use underlies part of the age-related decline in associative memory. Particularly internal strategies, which are very beneficial for memorization, tend to be used less as people age. We examined the relationship between age and self-initiated internal memory strategies and tested whether strategy use mediated the relationship between age and associative memory performance. Furthermore, we investigated whether executive functioning and microstructural integrity of the cingulum (CGC) and uncinate fasciculus (UNC) underlie this process. An adult lifespan sample (N = 188, 49% male, aged 18-79) completed the Verbal Paired Associates task. Memory strategies were evaluated following task completion. Outcome measures included the total number of strategies used and the proportional use of elaborative, visual, and verbal strategies. Results showed that higher total, elaborative, and visual strategy use was associated with better memory performance. While visual strategy use declined with age, it did not account for age-related differences in memory performance. Strategy use was unrelated to executive functioning and fractional anisotropy of the CGC and UNC. Explorative analyses revealed that the likelihood of using specific elaborative strategies (i.e. mental imagery, story construction, and sentence generation) was reduced with age. Together, these strategies mediated the relationship between age and memory performance. While these findings should be interpreted within the context of the associative memory task, they advocate for considering the qualitative nature of memory strategies and emphasize the role of self-initiated strategy use in compensating for age-related memory decline.