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The effects of marital status on episodic and semantic memory in healthy middle‐aged and old individuals
Author(s) -
MOUSAVINASAB S.M.HOSSEIN,
KORMINOURI REZA,
SUNDSTRÖM ANNA,
NILSSON LARSGÖRAN
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2011.00926.x
Subject(s) - episodic memory , psychology , semantic memory , recall , autobiographical memory , cognition , reconstructive memory , marital status , developmental psychology , fluency , verbal fluency test , retrospective memory , cognitive psychology , childhood memory , neuropsychology , population , demography , psychiatry , mathematics education , sociology
Mousavi‐Nasab, S.‐M.‐H., Kormi‐Nouri, R., Sundström, A. & Nilsson, L.‐G. (2012). The effects of marital status on episodic and semantic memory in healthy middle‐aged and old individuals. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 1–8. The present study examined the influences of marital status on different episodic and semantic memory tasks. A total of 1882 adult men and women participated in a longitudinal project (Betula) on memory, health and aging. The participants were grouped into two age cohorts, 35–60 and 65–85, and studied over a period of 5 years. Episodic memory tasks concerned recognition and recall, whereas semantic memory tasks concerned knowledge and fluency. The results showed, after controlling for education, some diseases, chronological age and leisure activity as covariates, that there were significant differences between married and single individuals in episodic memory, but not in semantic memory. Married people showed significantly better memory performances than singles in both subsystems of episodic memory, that is, recall and recognition. Also, the rate of decline in episodic memory was significantly larger for singles and widowed than other groups over the 5‐year time period in both age groups. The findings demonstrate that the positive relation found between marriage and health can be extended to the relation between marriage and cognitive performance. This effect might be explained by the role played by cognitive stimulation in memory and cognition.