The effect of aging on direct and indirect measures of memory

When psychologists evaluate a person’s memory for something they have seen, heard, or studied in the past, they have often relied on “direct” tests of memory. Direct memory tests require a participant to have conscious awareness of the studied material (e.g. a list of words, a picture, or an encounter with a particular individual), and require either a verbal or motor response, such as a button press or key click, to indicate that they remember having encountered the studied material.

However, there are situations in which it might be beneficial to evaluate a person’s memory for studied material using indirect testing methods. For example, indirect memory tests may reveal memory for studied material that is not available for conscious report. In addition, indirect memory tests can be used for patient populations that are unable to make overt memory responses.

In this talk I will discuss two types of indirect memory metrics: reaction time and gaze fixations. I will describe several studies that have investigated the role of different brain regions in both direct and indirect memory representations. Finally I will discuss how direct and indirect memory measures change with advanced age and in people with mild cognitive impairment.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Rosanna Kathleen Olsen is a Senior Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute (RRI), Baycrest Academy for Research and Education (BARE) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Olsen holds a Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in cognitive neuroscience from Stanford University. Her laboratory studies how human memory changes with advanced age and the brain regions involved in different types of memory. She co-leads an international working group called the Hippocampal Subfields Group, which develops standardized neuroimaging analysis protocols. Dr. Olsen also co-leads the Neuroimaging Platform for COMPASS-ND (Phase III), the signature cohort study of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA). In addition, she serves as the Education Chair-Elect for the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Aging, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Alzheimer Society of Canada, and the EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND). At RRI/BARE, she is the faculty lead of the Research Training Centre. Please visit Dr. Olsen’s Google Scholar page to read more about her lab’s work.