Subjective memory in adults over 50 years of age: associations with affective and physiological markers of emotion regulation

Abstract

Objectives: To examine associations among subjective memory reports, psychophysiological markers of emotion regulation, and cognitive performance in healthy adults over 50 years of age.

Method: A cross-sectional laboratory study was conducted with healthy, community-dwelling, non-depressed adults (M age = 60.4 years, SD = 8.4). The Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire provided reports of subjective memory capacity and stability (versus decline) and anxiety about memory. Poorer emotion regulation was marked by greater negative affect (NA) and lower high frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) responses to a challenging working memory task. Regression models were used to identify associations between subjective memory and emotion regulation markers, and structural equation modeling was used to explore whether emotion regulation mediated associations between subjective memory and objective task performance.

Results: A total of 115 participants were included in the final sample. Subjective memory decline (indicated by lower scores on memory stability) was associated with lower HF-HRV response and worse working memory performance. Poorer subjective memory capacity and more anxiety about memory were both associated with greater negative affect in response to the working memory task. There was an indirect effect of subjective memory capacity on working memory performance through negative affect response.

Conclusions: The findings here suggest that worse subjective memory may signal reduced capacity for emotion regulation. Along with known cognitive risks of depression and anxiety, more subtle emotion regulation difficulties may be involved in pathways of poor cognitive aging.

Keywords: Subjective memory; affect; cognitive aging; emotion regulation; older adults.

Figure 1.

SEM model of post negative affect mediating baseline negative affect, memory capacity, memory stability, and anxiety concerning memory associations with ACT score (unstandardized regression parameters presented (standardized in parenthesis); significant paths bolded, non-significant paths dashed). Age and education effects omitted for clarity as were correlations among the source variables. *** p < .001; ** p < .01, * p < .05, ^a p < .10. ACT = Auditory Consonant Trigram Task; BCCI = Bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval.