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P W Foos

Publications and source records attributed to P W Foos.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Adult age differences in semantic and episodic memory.

In 2 experiments, performance was compared on memory tests taken by older and younger adults for information that had been rated as more memorable for older adults or more memorable for each age group by adults in that age group. In Experiment 1, semantic knowledge was tested by having the participants recognize or recall information from memory (e.g., name as many states as you can). The older adults performed significantly better; thus, hypotheses of superior knowledge and ease of retrieval of that knowledge for that age group were supported. In Experiment 2, lists of presidents and states were presented to the participants, followed by recognition and recall tests of episodic memory. The younger adults performed significantly better. The older adults studied familiar items on the lists for less time and made many more errors. Thus, the hypothesis of an encoding deficit influenced by item familiarity for older adults was supported.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Adult age differences in working memory.

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether adult age differences in working memory should be attributed to less efficient processing, a smaller working memory storage capacity, or both. In Experiment 1, young, middle-age, and older adults solved three addition problems before giving the answers to any. Older adults added as well as young and middle-age adults but showed a more pronounced serial position curve across the three problem positions. In Experiment 2, young and older adults constructed linear orderings (e.g., ABCD) from pairwise information presented in sentences (e.g., BC). Manipulations involving processing (e.g., type of sentence) did not interact with age differences, but those involving storage capacity (e.g., ordering length) did. All main effects and interactions support the hypothesis of a smaller storage capacity but do not rule out some processing deficit in older adults.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Age differences in memory for two common objects.

An experiment was conducted to see if the laboratory findings of poorer recognition memory performance and more cautious responding by elderly adults could be duplicated in a nonlaboratory setting using common, everyday objects. Thirty old and 30 young adults were asked to sort drawings of the top side of a United States penny and of a pushbutton telephone dial into the following four categories: (1) the one correct drawing, (2) drawings that could be correct if the first were not, (3) possibly correct drawings, and (4) incorrect drawings. Results showed that older adults were more often incorrect but more confident in their responses than young adults.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Using sentences to convey spatial information.

Individuals listened to pairwise relationships (e.g., AB, BC, CD) and learned the underlying spatial ordering (e.g., ABCD). Previous work shows that the order in which information is presented strongly affects the success of learning and that these presentation order effects are different when the information occurs in sentences (e.g., "The B is to the left of the C") instead of pairs (e.g., "B-C"). By using a number of different presentation orders and both kinds of input, the present work reveals that these sentence-pair differences can be attributed to the presence of a stated relationship (e.g., the adjective "left") in the sentence and the corresponding facilitation of basic processes by linguistic structures. The role of language in the learning of spatial relationships is discussed.

Cognition↗
PubMed1980

Constructing cognitive maps from sentences.

Three experiments investigated the construction of one- and two-dimensional cognitive maps from presented sentences containing information about adjacent pairs of items in the map. Sentences were of the form The item is X of the item or The item has the item on its X side when items were high-frequency nouns and X was the adjective north, south, east, or west. Hypotheses derived from three-term series and linear ordering work were tested. Increasing the number of dimensions and end anchors did not affect performance, although increasing the number of items lowered performance. Construction was best when the ordering was complete rather than partial, when each incoming sentence presented new information that could be immediately integrated with previously presented information, when new items could be added to the end rather than the beginning of a stored representation, and when the sentence adjective was congruent with the placement of the new item in the map. This last result appears to depend to some extent on the representational strategy adopted by participants.

Cognition↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Adult age differences in the storage of information in working memory.

The performance of 97 young and 91 old persons were compared to determine if a deficiency in working memory resources for processing, storage, or allocation could be detected. Persons simultaneously performed a storage and one of two processing tasks while instructed to allocate resources to processing, storage, or both tasks. The storage task involved remembering the names of one, three, or five persons. Processing tasks involved solving addition problems presented on flashcards or answering common knowledge questions. Results showed increased age differences on the storage task as demands for resources increased but no differences on processing tasks. Individuals seemed unable to allocate resources as instructed. A comparison of young-old and old-old groups showed the same results as those obtained comparing young and old groups and support the hypothesis of a deficiency of storage, but not processing, resources in working memory for old, especially old-old, adults.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Working memory resource allocation by young, middle-aged, and old adults.

Three hypotheses regarding the locus of age differences in working memory were examined in an experiment in which young, middle-aged, and old adults remembered the names of persons standing in line while also performing mental addition. Instructions as to the relative importance of these two tasks were manipulated. The results are highly compatible with the hypothesis of an age-related deficit in a single pool of resources that can be allocated to different tasks. They do not support hypotheses of deficits in one or more pools used separately for processing and storage functions. Middle-aged adults performed as well as young adults and better than old adults.

Adolescent↗