How personality affects memory and brain patterns in older adults
Older adults who are highly open to experience show better memory because their brain activity patterns during learning look more like those of younger adults.
Source
Openness to Experience is associated with neural and performance measures of memory in older adults
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Combined two healthy-adult cohorts with personality questionnaires plus neural/performance measures
- N
- N=352 · 209 young (18–35) and 143 older (50–80) adults with personality data
- Population
- Healthy young and older adults
- Outcome
- Association of openness to experience with neural and performance measures of cognition
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How personality affects memory and brain patterns in older adults
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352 healthy adults participated in the study
The total sample of 352 adults was split up into the groups of young ( n = 209, 18–35 years old; age: M = 24.30, s.d. = 3.29) and older adults ( n = 143, 50–80 years old; age: M = 63.80, s.d. = 6.68).
132 trials were completed in the visual memory task
The task consisted of 132 trials, including unknown indoor and outdoor images (44 trials each; ‘novel’ images) and two images that were pre-familiarized to the participants (one indoor and one outdoor, each presented in 22 trials; ‘master’ images).
What they did
The study assessed a total sample of 352 healthy adults, divided into a young group of 209 individuals and an older group of 143 individuals. While inside an fMRI scanner, they performed an incidental visual learning task involving 132 trials of indoor and outdoor scenes. Approximately 70 minutes after the scanning began, participants completed a surprise memory recognition test outside the scanner. To assess personality traits, participants filled out a 60-item questionnaire.
What they found
Older adults had lower memory scores and less youthful brain activity patterns during memory encoding than young adults. However, among the older participants, those who scored higher in Openness to Experience showed significantly better memory performance and brain patterns that closely resembled younger adults. Statistical modeling showed that youth-like brain activation patterns (measured via the SAME score) mediated 40.74% of the positive relationship between Openness and memory performance, while brain deviation patterns (measured via the FADE score) mediated 26.29% of this relationship. Further exploratory analyses indicated that left-hemisphere brain activity in the medial occipital gyrus also acted as a mediator, accounting for 33.33% of this association.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Because this study is cross-sectional and correlational, it cannot prove that high Openness directly causes slower brain aging or better memory retention. The researchers measured personality using a single self-report survey, meaning they could not definitively map which specific sub-facets of Openness (such as artistic interest versus intellectual curiosity) drive the main effect. Furthermore, the relationship between personality and memory was completely absent in the younger adult cohort, possibly because the memory task was not difficult enough to expose personality-driven differences in performance.
Key terms
- Episodic memory
- The ability to register, store, and successfully recall personal experiences tied to a specific time and place.
- Openness to Experience
- A fundamental personality trait reflecting intellectual curiosity, creative imagination, and an appreciation for new ideas and aesthetic experiences.
- fMRI
- A non-invasive neuroimaging technique that tracks blood flow changes to map active regions of the brain.
- SAME score
- A single-value brain imaging metric that measures how similar an individual's brain responses are to a typical young adult's baseline.
- FADE score
- A single-value brain imaging metric representing how much an individual's brain activation patterns deviate from a young adult standard.
- Mediation analysis
- A statistical approach used to explore whether the effect of one variable on another is explained through a third, middle variable.
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What does the SAME score measure in the context of neurocognitive aging, and how does it differ from the FADE score?
Common questions
How does being open to experience help protect memory in older age?
Highly open individuals are more likely to pursue intellectually engaging and novel activities throughout life, which may build up cognitive reserves and help preserve youthful brain network patterns.
What did the brain scans reveal about the older participants' brains?
Older participants who scored high in Openness had brain activity patterns during memory tests that closely resembled the patterns seen in younger, healthy adults.
Did other personality traits exhibit similar associations with memory?
While Extraversion initially showed positive correlations with memory and brain activity, further statistical control showed that Openness to Experience had the most robust and independent relationship.
Why was this personality-memory link not observed in younger adults?
The memory task may have been too easy for the younger group, meaning everyone performed so well that individual differences linked to personality traits were masked.
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