Word frequency influences on the list length effect and associative memory in young and older adults

Many studies show that age deficits in memory are smaller for information supported by pre-experimental experience. Many studies also find dissociations in memory tasks between words that occur with high and low frequencies in language, but the literature is mixed regarding the extent of word frequency effects in normal ageing. We examined whether age deficits in episodic memory could be influenced by manipulations of word frequency. In Experiment 1, young and older adults studied short and long lists of high- and low-frequency words for free recall. The list length effect (the drop in proportion recalled for longer lists) was larger in young compared to older adults and for high- compared to low-frequency words. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed item and associative recognition memory tests with high- and low-frequency words. Age deficits were greater for associative memory than for item memory, demonstrating an age-related associative deficit. High-frequency words led to better associative memory performance whilst low-frequency words resulted in better item memory performance. In neither experiment was there any evidence for age deficits to be smaller for high- relative to low-frequency words, suggesting that word frequency effects on memory operate independently from effects due to cognitive ageing

Word frequency influences on the list length effect and associative memory in young and older adults

Many studies show that age deficits in memory are smaller for information supported by preexperimental experience. Many studies also find dissociations in memory tasks between words that occur with high and low frequencies in language, but the literature is mixed regarding the extent of word frequency effects in normal ageing. We examined whether age deficits in episodic memory could be influenced by manipulations of word frequency. In Experiment 1, young and older adults studied short and long lists of high- and low-frequency words for free recall. The list length effect (the drop in proportion recalled for longer lists) was larger in young compared to older adults and for high- compared to low-frequency words. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed item and associative recognition memory tests with high- and low-frequency words. Age deficits were greater for associative memory than for item memory, demonstrating an age-related associative deficit. High-frequency words led to better associative memory performance whilst low-frequency words resulted in better item memory performance. In neither experiment was there any evidence for age deficits to be smaller for high- relative to low-frequency words, suggesting that word frequency effects on memory operate independently from effects due to cognitive ageing

Homogeneity of memory errors in abstract visual pattern recall

In memory tests, recalled information can be distorted by errors in memory and these distortions can be more memorable than the original stimuli to a later learner. This is typically observed over several generations of learners but there is less exploration of the initial distortions from the first generation of learners. In this article, participants studied visual matrix patterns which were either erroneous recall attempts from previous participants or were random patterns. Experiment 1 showed some evidence that material based on previous participants’ recall data was more memorable than random material, but this did not replicate in Experiment 2. Of greater interest in the current data were homogeneity in the memory errors made by participants which demonstrated systematic recall biases in a single generation of learners. Unlike studies utilising multiple generations of learners, the currently observed distortions cannot be attributed to survival-of-the-fittest mechanisms where biases are driven by encoding effects

Covid-19 voices in finnish news media in the global context: A Comparative Study of News Media’s Roles in Pandemic Communications and Public Perceptions across Six Countries

This project investigated issues pertaining to COVID-19 related communications by different social actors, such as governments, news media, health authorities, experts, business organizations, and their impact on the general public’s attitudes and behaviours. It sheds some light into the news media’s role during pandemics, thus exploring the extent by which news media contributed to specific understandings of the COVID-19 pandemic by their journalistic choices of issues, tone, and crisis narratives. This project is comparative in nature, including data on public perceptions across six countries (Australia, Finland, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, and USA) and news media analyses of two countries’ main news outlets (Finland and Sweden)

A revised digital media–arena framework guiding strategic communication in digital environments

Purpose This paper refines the Digital Media–Arena (DMA) framework to address the diversity of stakeholders contributing to the production, (re)appropriation and (re)distribution of organisational messages in digital environments. It also presents a case analysis for the purpose of demonstrating the applicability of the revised conceptual framework to a critical situation. Design/methodology/approach Grounded in key public relations, corporate communication and strategic communication research, this study first extends the DMA framework by introducing six new forms of media-arenas. Next, the study takes a public sector perspective to analyse the revised framework against a critical situation involving the Finnish prime minister in summer 2022. Findings The application of the revised DMA framework to analyse the critical situation shows the importance of mapping and understanding diverse discourses across multi-arenas and their communication role in a rapidly unfolding scandal surrounding the prime minister of Finland. Findings also reveal the diversity of stakeholder voices forming their own versions of organisational messages and sometimes converging organisational messages within and across DMAs. Practical implications The DMA framework can offer practical suggestions to guide communicators to make strategic choices in what, where, how and with whom they can communicate. Originality/value The revised DMA framework contributes expanding the field's knowledge of the strategic communicative use of the digital environment in typically highly volatile and multi-vocal situations by offering instrumental understanding of the conflicting challenge between subjugating and liberating organisational messages across the digital spectrum

What you know can influence what you are going to know (especially for older adults)

Stimuli related to an individual's knowledge/experience are often more memorable than abstract stimuli, particularly for older adults. This has been found when material that is congruent with knowledge is contrasted with material that is incongruent with knowledge, but there is little research on a possible graded effect of congruency. The present study manipulated the degree of congruency of study material with participants’ knowledge. Young and older participants associated two famous names to nonfamous faces, where the similarity between the nonfamous faces and the real famous individuals varied. These associations were incrementally easier to remember as the name-face combinations became more congruent with prior knowledge, demonstrating a graded congruency effect, as opposed to an effect based simply on the presence or absence of associations to prior knowledge. Older adults tended to show greater susceptibility to the effect than young adults, with a significant age difference for extreme stimuli, in line with previous literature showing that schematic support in memory tasks particularly benefits older adults

Leveraging NLP for crisis communication management: A case study of news media analysis of the COVID‐19 pandemic in two Nordic countries

The news media plays a vital role in influencing public perceptions about topics, issues and crises. They also act as important intermediaries between organizations and public, enabling organizations to shape how people think about crisis topics and actors. Monitoring news coverage and assessing the news media's agenda‐setting role in a crisis can help organizations respond more effectively to emerging situations. When crises are prolonged and affect many countries, media analysis can become a tedious task for crisis managers. This study demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) methods can be utilized in news media analysis of crisis situations, such as an extended cross‐national pandemic. Specifically, it demonstrates the possibilities of using NLP to identify and compare the salience of diverse crisis topics and how the media treat these topics and crisis actors (first‐ and second‐level agenda‐setting) across countries, news outlets, and time. The COVID‐19 pandemic serves as an illustrative case study to showcase the application of NLP techniques to provide insights into public perceptions of a major health crisis shaped by the news media in two Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden). Findings show the suitability of NLP methods to detect nuanced differences in news media coverage and offer relevant knowledge of how public perceptions and responsibility attribution fluctuate across time and countries

Conflicts of interest are harming maternal and child health: time for scientific journals to end relationships with manufacturers of breast-milk substitutes

The promotion and support of breastfeeding globally is thwarted by the USD $57 billion (and growing) formula industry that engages in overt and covert advertising and promotion as well as extensive political activity to foster policy environments conducive to market growth.1 This includes health professional financing and engagement through courses, e-learning platforms, sponsorship of conferences and health professional associations2 and advertising in medical/health journals. These contribute to the overuse of specialised formulas3 and inappropriate dissemination of health and nutrition claims.4 Such ‘medical marketing’ reduces breastfeeding initiation, exclusivity, and duration, irrespective of country context.5 It also creates a subtle, unconscious bias and conflict of interest, whereby journal publishers may consciously, or unconsciously, favour corporations in ways that undermine scientific integrity and editorial independence—even perceived conflicts of interest may tarnish the reputation of scientists, organisations or corporations. Such conflicts have plagued infant and young child nutrition science for decades

Older adults do not show enhanced benefits from multisensory information on speeded perceptual discrimination tasks

Some research has shown that older adults benefit more from multisensory information than do young adults. However, more recent evidence has shown that the multisensory age benefit varies considerably across tasks. In the current study, older (65 – 80) and young (18 – 30) adults (N = 191) completed a speeded perceptual discrimination task either online or face-to-face to assess task response speed. We examined whether presenting stimuli in multiple sensory modalities (audio-visual) instead of one (audio-only or visual-only) benefits older adults more than young adults. Across all three experiments, a consistent speeding of response was found in the multisensory condition compared to the unisensory conditions for both young and older adults. Furthermore, race model analysis showed a significant multisensory benefit across a broad temporal interval. Critically, there were no significant differences between young and older adults. Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence in favour of a multisensory benefit that does not differ across age groups, contrasting with prior research

EXPRESS: Memory for health information: influences of age, hearing aids, and multisensory presentation

Background: We investigated how presenting online health information in different modalities can influence memory, as this may be particularly important for older adults who may need to make regular decisions about health, and could also face additional challenges such as memory deficits and sensory impairment (hearing loss). Objectives: We tested whether, as predicted by some literature, older adults would disproportionately benefit from audio-visual (AV) information compared with visual-only (VO) or auditory-only (AO) information, relative to young adults. Research Design & Methods: Participants were 78 young adults (aged 18-30 years old, mean=25.50 years), 78 older adults with normal hearing (aged 65-80 years old, mean=68.34 years), and 78 older adults who wear hearing aids (aged 65-79 years old, mean=70.89 years). Results & Discussion: There were no significant differences in the amount of information remembered across modalities (AV, VO, AO), no differences across participant groups, and we did not find the predicted interaction between participant group and modality. The older-adult groups performed worse than young adults on background measures of cognition, with the exception of a vocabulary test, suggesting that they may have been using strategies based on prior knowledge and experience to compensate for cognitive and/or sensory deficits. Implications: The findings indicate that cost-effective, text-based websites may be just as useful as those with edited videos for conveying health information to all age groups, and hearing aid users