{"doi":"10.31234/osf.io/rqb8u","title":"Memory precision and age differentially predict the use of decision-making strategies across the lifespan.","abstract":"Memory function declines in normal aging, in a relatively continuous fashion following middle-age. The effect of aging on decision-making is less well-understood, with seemingly conflicting results on both the nature and direction of these age effects. One route for clarifying these mixed findings is to understand how age-related differences in memory affect decisions. Recent work has proposed memory sampling as a specific computational role for memory in decision-making, alongside well-studied mechanisms of reinforcement learning (RL). Here, we tested the hypothesis that age-related declines in episodic memory alter memory sampling. Participants (total N=361; ages 18-77) performed one of two variants of a standard reward-guided decision experiment with additional trial-unique mnemonic content and a separately-administered task for assessing memory precision. When we fit participants’ choices with a hybrid computational model implementing both memory-based and RL-driven valuation side-by-side, we found that memory precision tracked the contribution of memory sampling to choice. At the same time, age corresponded to decreasing influence of RL and increasing perseveration. A second experiment confirmed these results and further revealed that memory precision tracked the content of sampled memories. Together, these findings suggest that differences in decision-making across the lifespan may be related to memory function, and that interventions which aim to improve the former may benefit from targeting the latter.","journal":"PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)","year":2023,"id":394634,"datarank":0.20794415416798362,"base_score":1.3862943611198906,"endowment":1.3862943611198906,"self_citation_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9608,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1116980,"name":"Umesh Kumar Singla","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":331904,"name":"Ilana J. Bennett","orcid":"0000-0002-5330-4679","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":269718,"name":"Aaron M. Bornstein","orcid":"0000-0001-6251-6000","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":679658,"name":"Sharon M. Noh","orcid":"0000-0003-0002-7759","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":58,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:19:14.590635Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}