La memoria a lungo termine nell’invecchiamento. Implicazioni per l’educazione linguistica degli anziani

Abstract Since long ago investigations about human memory in psychological and neuropsychological fields have assumed that human memory cannot be represented as a unitary concept. Memory skills are to be considered as a set of interacting processes and systems which have particular functional properties and involve several neural areas. The memory processes include operations such as the encoding of input by the sensorial memory and attentional processes, the keeping and elaboration of input by the short-term memory and working memory. These latter operations are essential for developing the cognitive functions useful for learning, reasoning and problem solving. The memory processes also include the phases of information storage and retrieval which make available the information for the necessary cognitive (and emotional) activities which the individual play in interacting with the world. Long-term memory is responsible for the phases of storage and retrieval of information. It has the task of organizing and associating knowledges of a different nature in a stable and functional way for recovering them. This paper intends to describe the main aspects of the long-term memory from the perspective of aging, in order to establish some useful linguistic implications from the point of view of a language education for the elderly.