An associative hypothesis to explain and predict older adults' deficient explicit episodic memory performance was outlined and tested. The hypothesis attributes a substantial part of older adults' deficient memory performance to their difficulty in merging unrelated attributes-units of an episode into a cohesive unit. Although each of the components can be memorized to a reasonable degree, the associations that tie the attributes-units to each other grow weaker in old age. Four experiments are reported that provide (a) a converging validity to the hypothesis by demonstrating this associative deficit for both interitem relationships and intraitem relationships and (b) a discriminant validity to the hypothesis by contrasting and testing competing predictions made by the associative hypothesis and by alternative hypotheses. The implications of these results to older adults' episodic memory performance are discussed.

Adult age differences in memory performance: Tests of an associative deficit hypothesis.

Controlled learning with effective cued recall is needed to distinguish between genuine memory deficits due to impairment of specific memory processes and apparent memory deficits due to impairment of other cognitive processes, such as attention, that can limit memory. Effective cued recall is needed for accurate measurement of memory in the elderly because cued recall reveals learning not shown by free recall. When a search procedure was used to control processing for effective encoding and cued recall, nondemented elderly adults recalled all or nearly all 16 items on each trial. Decreased recall by demented patients even after they carried out the same effective processing showed genuine memory impairment that was not due to other cognitive deficits. Cued recall was better than either free recall or recognition in discriminating elderly persons with dementia from those without dementia and by itself accounted for 75 % of the variation in dementia status. Cued recall was especially useful for identifying...

Genuine memory deficits in dementia

An experiment is reported in which young and elderly adults performed cued-recall and recognition tests while carrying out a choice reaction-time task. An analysis of covariance, with recognition performance as the covariate, showed a reliable age decrement in recall. It was therefore concluded that older people perform more poorly on recall tasks than they do on recognition tasks. Performance on the secondary (reaction time) task showed that recall was associated with greater resource "costs" than was recognition and that this effect was amplified by increasing age. The results are in line with the suggestion that recall requires more processing resources than does recognition and that such resources are depleted as people grow older. The literature on age differences in human memory includes a large number of studies comparing the performance of young and old adults on tests of recall and recognition memory. The results of these studies have consistently shown an age decrement in recall performance (see Botwinick, 1978; Burke &

Age differences in recall and recognition

The idea that information is transferred from temporary to permanent storage is a pervasive one in memory research. However, in this article it is argued that the idea is unnecessary and misleading. Functions relating rehearsal time to subsequent memory performance take a variety of forms, depending first on the qualitative nature of the encoding processes carried out during rehearsal, and second on the compatibility of retrieval processes with the initial encoding. It is argued that memory is largely a function of depth and elaboration of the initial encoding, and that the memory deficits found in elderly people and under conditions of divided attention reflect impaired comprehension of the material. On the other hand, amnesic patients exhibit adequate comprehension yet poor memory, suggesting that some physiological process of consolidation may also be involved in normal learning and remembering.

On the transfer of information from temporary to permanent memory

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/schacterlab/files/schacterharblukmclachlan1984.pdf

Retrieval without Recollection: An Experimental Analysis of Source Amnesia

A processing resource account of age differences in recall.

It is almost a truism that memory in older people is much poorer than memory in younger people. These performance differences are most often found in typical laboratory experimental tasks requiring recall (and sometimes recognition) of recently experienced episodic events. The most common tasks require recall of previously studied lists of words, paired associates, or sentences. Age differences in these paradigms are often profound and occur under a wide variety of conditions (see Craik, 1977).

Jan C. Rabinowitz

Papers

A processing resource account of age differences in recall.

General Encoding of Episodic Events by Elderly Adults