Environmental determinants of memory improvement in late adulthood.

Two studies were conducted with nursing home residents to determine whether memory could be improved. This was accomplished by increasing the cognitive demand of the environment and then varying the extent to which residents were motivated to attend to and remember these environmental factors. In Study 1, motivation to practice recommended cognitive activities was manipulated by varying the degree of reciprocal self-disclosure offered by interviewers in a series of dyadic interactions. In Study 2, motivation to practice recommended cognitive activities was manipulated by varying whether positive outcomes were contingent on attending to and remembering these activities, which increased in demand over time. Whether as a function of interpersonal (Study 1) or practical (Study 2) incentives, engaging in cognitive activity resulted in improvement on standard short-term memory tests, including probe recall and pattern recall, as well as in improvement on nurses' ratings of alertness, mental activity, and social adjustment for experimental groups relative to controls.