Age-related declines in the fidelity of newly acquired category representations
- 1Imaging Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
- 2Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
- 3Institute for Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
- 4Department of Cognitive, Perceptual, and Brain Sciences, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
Abstract
We present a theory suggesting that the ability to build category representations that reflect the nuances of category structures in the environment depends upon clustering mechanisms instantiated in an MTL-PFC-based circuit. Because function in this circuit declines with age, we predict that the ability to build category representations will be impaired in older adults. Consistent with this prediction, we find that older adults are impaired relative to younger adults at learning nuanced category structures that contain exceptions to the rule. Model-based analysis reveals that this deficit arises from older adults’ failure to engage clustering mechanisms to separate exception and rule-following items in memory.
Footnotes
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↵5 Corresponding author
E-mail Thdavis{at}mail.utexas.edu
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[Supplemental material is available for this article.]
- Received November 21, 2011.
- Accepted May 7, 2012.
- © 2012 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
