Examining theories of cognitive ageing using the false memory paradigm

In this paper, we used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm to test two contending theories of cognitive ageing - the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis and the Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis. The DRM lists contain a number of words (e.g. dream, bed, blanket) that are all related to a single, non-presented lure (e.g. SLEEP). Participants often report that the lure was actually presented in the list; and the longer the list, the more likely the participants are to make this error. The transmission deficit hypothesis predicts that as we age, we are less likely to make the errors with shorter lists; the inhibitory deficit hypothesis suggests that errors will be made with shorter and shorter lists. Our data offered support for the inhibitory deficit hypothesi