Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Mar 17;37(1):87.
doi: 10.1007/s40520-024-02914-4.

Older adults produce more verbal false memories than younger adults: is it semantics or executive functioning?

Martina Cangelosi  1 , Luca Rinaldi  2 , Ton Dijkstra  3 , Paola Palladino  4 , Elena Cavallini  2
Affiliations

Older adults produce more verbal false memories than younger adults: is it semantics or executive functioning?

Martina Cangelosi et al. Aging Clin Exp Res. .

Abstract

Background: A verbal false memory occurs when one remembers a word (called "critical lure") as part of a previously presented list despite its absence. This phenomenon may be linked to the semantic associations of the critical lure with actual list items.

Aims: We aimed to investigate the mechanisms behind the increase in verbal false memories with aging, evaluating whether this is due to a greater reliance on semantic processing or impaired executive functioning.

Methods: We employed the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, presenting DRM word lists to two age groups: young adults and older adults. In addition, participants completed the Hayling Sentence Completion Test to assess inhibition and the Backward Digit Span Task to evaluate working memory.

Results: Our findings confirm that older adults experience more verbal false memories than younger participants. Results suggest that both semantic processing reliance and inhibition impairment contribute to the increase in false memories with aging, while working memory was not significantly related to false memory production.

Discussion: Older adults' increased susceptibility to false memories appears to arise from an interplay between enhanced semantic reliance and inhibition deficits.

Conclusions: This study proposes a novel integration of semantic and executive mechanisms underlying the observed increase in false memories during aging, with inhibition playing an unexpected role in enhancing false memory susceptibility.

Keywords: Aging; DRM paradigm; Executive functioning; False memory; Semantics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Semantic similarity for the DRM categories of critical lures, weakly related and unrelated words
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
False memory effect between the two groups
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Linear mixed model results
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Deese J (1959) On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. J Exp Psychol 58:17–22. 10.1037/h0046671 - PubMed
    1. Roediger HL III, McDermott KB (1995) Creating false memories: remembering words not presented in list. J Experimental Psychology: Learn Memory Cognition 21:803–814. 10.1037/0278-7393.21.4.803
    1. Brainerd CJ, Reyna VF, Ceci SJ (2008) Developmental reversals in false memory: a review of data and theory. Psychol Bull 134(3):343–382. 10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.343 - PubMed
    1. Reyna VF, Corbin JC, Weldon RB, Brainerd CJ (2016) How fuzzy-trace theory predicts true and false memories for words, sentences, and narratives. J Appl Res Memory Cognition 5(1):1–9. 10.1016/j.jarmac.2015.12.003 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brainerd C, Reyna V (2004) Fuzzy-trace theory and memory development. Dev Rev 24(4):396–439. 10.1016/j.dr.2004.08.005