The QuadMax Task: A Novel Parametric Manipulation of Associative Memory Load in Adults Across the Lifespan

Adults of all ages are worse at remembering which pairs of items were previously seen together relative to memory for the individual items, and this paired-associative memory deficit is exacerbated in aging. Less is known about memory for higher-order associations, including whether they place greater demands on the binding processes that link information into a cohesive memory trace. In this study, adults across the lifespan (Experiment 1: n = 250, 18-78 years) and in extreme age groups (Experiment 2: n = 64, 18-25 and 64-78 years) completed a novel recognition task in which they studied word pairs, triplets, and quadruplets and were later tested on their memory for repeated, recombined, and novel word sets. Associative memory deficits were seen in both experiments as the difference between correct responses to repeated (hits) and incorrect responses to recombined (recombined false alarm, FA) sets that decreased from pairs to quadruplets. In addition, older age groups had worse associative memory scores (Experiment 2) and made more recombined FA’s (Experiment 1) than younger age groups. These findings indicate that associative memory deficits increase with demands on binding processes at higher associative loads and that these effects are amplified in aging. They further demonstrate the feasibility of manipulating and assessing associative memory load using our novel QuadMax task.