Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Anthony Wagner (Psychology)

“Speaking of Memory: The Role of Event Boundaries in Aging and Recall"

As people age, changes in speech patterns can reveal cognitive decline, including early signs of Alzheimer’s Disease. Prior research suggests we remember information better within event boundaries—distinct episodes in our experience—than across them. Carmen’s project builds on these findings by analyzing healthy older adults’ speech patterns during memory recall in a segmented text-based learning task. Using Python, Carmen will investigate whether speech differs when recalling events within versus across boundaries, potentially identifying markers of memory integration. Understanding how speech patterns reflect memory processes can facilitate early detection of memory impairments leading to more successful interventions.