Investigating the Mechanisms of Forgetting in Aging Using Eyetracking

• Main Author: Yeung, Lok Kin
• Other Authors: Barense, Morgan
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: forgetting; interference; aging; eyetracking; representational-hierachical model; 0633
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/31646

Recent studies in rodents (McTighe et al, 2010; Burke et al, 2010) have suggested that forgetting is caused by the misidentification of novel stimuli as being familiar, matching the predictions of the representational-hierarchical model of Saksida & Bussey (2010). Here, we tested this idea in humans. Three groups of participants (young, healthy elders, elders at-risk for MCI) viewed novel and repeated stimuli in a continuous viewing task while their eye movements were recorded. According to the eye-movement based memory effect (Ryan et al, 2000) individuals make fewer fixations on items which are perceived as familiar. As interference increased, eye-movements directed to the novel stimuli declined, indicating these novel items were perceived as familiar. This effect was stronger in groups more vulnerable to interference (eg. at-risk elders). These results suggest that forgetting in humans, like rats, is driven by the misidentification of novel items as being familiar.