Mind & behavior · 2006
What ways of learning help older adults remember new names and faces?
Learning was best when names were processed for meaning and faces for physical features. In older adults, self-generating information and intentionally learning name–face pairs also helped.
Details
Many older adults are interested in strategies to help them learn new names. The researchers examined which learning conditions provide the greatest benefit for learning names and faces across three experiments.
In Experiment 1, 20 younger adults and 20 older adults completed name recall and recognition tasks. Consistent with levels-of-processing theory, performance was poorest with physical processing, intermediate with phonemic processing, and best with semantic processing—that is, processing based on physical features, sounds, and meaning, respectively.
In Experiment 2, involving 20 younger adults and 20 older adults, name and face learning was maximized when participants processed names semantically and faces physically.
Experiment 3, involving 24 older adults, showed benefits of self-generation and intentional learning of name–face pairs.
The findings suggest that memory interventions should emphasize processing names for meaning, processing faces for physical features, self-generating this information, and keeping in mind that the names will need to be remembered in the future.
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