The Effects of Video Presence on Associative and Source Memory Among Younger and Older Adults in a Virtual Social Simulation

The current study aimed to examine how video presence in a simulated virtual socialization meeting would affect younger (<i>n</i> = 60) and older adults' (<i>n</i> = 65) associative and source memory. Participants were instructed to watch a simulated virtual meeting where speakers introduced themselves with a name and an occupation, half with their video on and the other half with their video off. Participants completed a recognition test of intact, rearranged, and new name-occupation pairs. For pairs recognized as old, participants were asked to identify whether the pair was presented with their video on or off. The associative memory accuracy (i.e., hit rate - false alarm rate) results showed a better performance in younger relative to older adults, but both age groups benefited equally from video presence. Source memory (i.e., video-on vs. video-off) results showed a significant benefit of video presence in older but not younger adults.