VSTM performance declines with advancing adult age in raw error, item capacity, precision, and misbinding, even after adjusting for sensorimotor performance¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associationalr3·q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2023: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Raw error magnitude significantly increased with age and K, precision, and misbinding all worsened with age across the adult life span. → Daniel J. Mitchell 2018
q3 i? Age-related declines remained for all memory measures after regressing out perceptual control (sensorimotor) performance. → Daniel J. Mitchell 2018 (2)
Evidence¶
Daniel J. Mitchell 2018¶
Daniel J. Mitchell, Cam-CAN (Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience), Rhodri Cusack. (2018). Visual Short-Term Memory Through the Lifespan: Preserved Benefits of Context and Metacognition. Psychology and Aging. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000265
q3 · i? · associational · r3
Cross-sectional analysis of the Cam-CAN population-based sample of 649 participants aged 18 to 89 on a continuous color-report VSTM task. The article reports statistically significant age-related worsening of raw error and K with no printed effect size in this passage.
"Raw error magnitude significantly increased with age on average (see Figure 2e), and at all memory loads (see Figure 2a). K at each memory load reduced with age (see Figure 2b), but the relationship was weaker at lower loads due to a ceiling effect."
Daniel J. Mitchell 2018 (2)¶
Daniel J. Mitchell, Cam-CAN (Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience), Rhodri Cusack. (2018). Visual Short-Term Memory Through the Lifespan: Preserved Benefits of Context and Metacognition. Psychology and Aging. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000265
q3 · i? · associational · r3
Correlational analysis in which precision and K estimates from a no-memory perceptual control block were regressed out of every VSTM measure before recomputing age correlations. Declines persisted for all memory measures, indicating they are not attributable to poorer color perception or motor control.
"Importantly, age-related declines remained for all memory measures (see Figures 2i through 2l)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Blocked-format span declines after age 20 but mixed-format span does not, implicating proactive interference in aging declines — related
- Consistent visual context between sample and probe boosts all measures of VSTM performance, and the benefit is preserved across the adult age range — related
- Better metacognitive awareness of trial-to-trial VSTM performance is associated with lower error, higher precision, and fewer misbinding errors, but not with item capacity, and this association is invariant across age — related
- Metacognitive awareness of VSTM performance becomes less accurate with age but remains well above chance across the adult life span — related
- At low memory loads, older adults report less uncertainty than younger adults despite making larger errors, suggesting an overconfidence bias — related
- WM capacity is significantly and negatively correlated with age in Korean adults — related
- Verbal memory performance declines with age in the full sample, significantly at the one-week delay — related
- Poorer useful field of view performance in older adults predicts motor vehicle collision risk and difficulties in everyday visual tasks, even after adjustment for sensory and cognitive impairment — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
vstm-declines-with-age-all-measures |
title |
VSTM performance declines with advancing adult age in raw error, item capacity, precision, and misbinding, even after adjusting for sensorimotor performance |
description |
VSTM performance declines with advancing adult age in raw error, item capacity, precision, and misbinding, even after adjusting for sensorimotor performance |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2018 |
recheck_by |
2023 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
2 — daniel-j-mitchell-2018, daniel-j-mitchell-2018-2 |
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