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Abstract:
Abstract: Binding features in memory is a crucial process in
creating an episodic representation. Features are bound together
intentionnally or incidentally. Chalfonte & Johnson (1996)
showed in old versus young adults a specific deficit in binding
objects and colors intentionnally. Our study was designed to assess
the ability to bind black and white objects and spatial locations
in a grid. We investigated the evolution of the performance in
incidental and intentionnal binding from a developmental point of
view. In a first study, we compared young and older adults. In a
second study, we compared groups of 5, 7, 9, and 11-year-old
children with the same material. We hypothesized that young
children and old adults would show the same pattern of intentionnal
binding deficit. Results showed that in all groups, performance
were better for incidental than intentionnal binding. Old adults
made significantly more errors of recognition following an
intentionnal encoding. Children of 11 year old performed better
than younger children. However, 7- and 9-year-old performed
significantly worse than 5-year-old children, and their performance
were comparable to old adults' results. These results are
interpreted in the context of the executive/frontal development in
childhood. We discuss the decrement of the performance of older
adults by contrasting executive and associative impairment in
aging.
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