The Effects of Encoding Task on Age-Related Differences in the Functional Neuroanatomy of Face Memory

Age-related differences in brain activity mediating face recognition were examined using positron emission tomography. Participants encoded faces using a pleasant-unpleasant judgment, a right-left orientation task, and intentional learning. Scans also were obtained during recognition. Both young and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2002-03, Vol.17 (1), p.7-23
Main Authors: Grady, Cheryl L, Bernstein, Lori J, Beig, Sania, Siegenthaler, Amy L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Affect - physiology
Age
Age Differences
Aged
Aging - physiology
Brain
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Dominance, Cerebral - physiology
Elderly people
Encoding
Face Perception
Face recognition
Facial Expression
Female
Human
Human Information Storage
Humans
Male
Memory
Mental Recall - physiology
Middle Aged
Neuroanatomy
Orientation - physiology
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Prefrontal Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Prefrontal Cortex - physiology
Psychology
Recognition (Learning)
Reference Values
Sensory perception
Tomography
Tomography, Emission-Computed
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Summary:Age-related differences in brain activity mediating face recognition were examined using positron emission tomography. Participants encoded faces using a pleasant-unpleasant judgment, a right-left orientation task, and intentional learning. Scans also were obtained during recognition. Both young and old groups showed signficant effects of encoding task on recognition accuracy, but older adults showed reduced accuracy overall. Increased brain activity in older adults was similar to that seen in young adults during conditions associated with deeper processing, but was reduced during the shallow encoding and recognition conditions. Left prefrontal activity was less in older adults during encoding, but greater during recognition. Differential correlations of brain activity and behavior were found that suggest older adults use unique neural systems to facilitate face memory.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.17.1.7