Adults who don't think growing older means they will lose their memory, and who employ memorization strategies they learned in school, have a greater chance of retaining their memory as they age, according to a new study conducted by Brandeis psychology researchers.After studying the effectiveness of these strategies among 335 adults age 21 to 83 for about a year starting in 2003, Department chair Prof. Margie Lachman, who specializes in the psychology of aging, and her staff at the Lifespan Developmental Psychology Lab, found that middle-aged and older adults who believe they are capable of remembering well and use the same devices students use in school, have stronger memories overall.

"Students develop their own strategies, whether it's taking notes or highlighting things or coming up with mnemonic devices or organizing material in certain ways, rehearsing, things like that," Lachman said. These strategies are just as helpful for older adults, she said.

However, because people engage less frequently in active memorization as they age, they forget to use such strategies.

"We have to remind people who are starting to worry about losing their memory that there are things you've done all along that work just as well, and perhaps are even more important to use," Lachman said.

In the study, which was published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences this month, volunteer subjects from the Greater Boston area were given a list of 30 words to memorize as quickly as possible and then recall them, Lachman said.

Lachman said subjects had to write down every word they could remember.

"[This] enabled us to see if they were able to categorize them," she said.

Lachman said the list included words that fit under various categories including flowers, fruit, sports and animals.

"Sometimes people didn't even notice there were categories in the words," Lachman said. "Other people noticed there were categories but they didn't necessarily use categorical organization."

The most successful participants grouped words into categories, Lachman said.

To aide in memorizing groups of words with no obvious connection, Lachman said some subjects used visualization or created links between words. For example, to pair "earring" with "lamp," she said, "you can visualize an earring hanging from a lampshade, or make up a story about why the earring happened to be on the lamp."

However, the role of one's confidence is more important, Lachman said.

"The people who used the strategies, among our middle-aged and older adults, were the ones who had this strong sense of control," she said. "Those who said to themselves, 'Yeah, this is a memory test that I can handle, that I'm able to control the outcome,' performed much better than those who thought 'now that I'm getting older, my memory just isn't very good and there's not much I can do to improve my memory.'"

Lachman's overall goal is to understand how people can "maximize successful aging and functioning later in life."

Lachman co-authored the study with Carrie Andreoletti, her former post-doctorate student who is now an assistant professor of psychology at Central Connecticut State University.

Lachman's current research, which explores the role of anxiety in memory performance of all ages will be completed by June.

"What we find is that anxiety increases when you are in a situation in which you don't think you're going to do well," she said.

The study is a part of a five-year, $1.2 million research project funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the National Institute on Aging.

Lachman has taught at the University for 25 years and was the editor of the Journal of Gerontology from 2000 to 2003.