AGE-DIFFERENCES IN ADULTS FREE-RECALL, CUED-RECALL, AND RECOGNITION

Adults [human] in their 20''s and 60''s were tested for free recall, cued recall and recognition of words that they had studied in an intentional memory task or generated associations to in an incidental orienting task. Significant age-related declines in performance on intentional items were observed regardless of type of memory test. Significant age-related declines in performance on incidental items were observed on free and cued recall tests. Age differences on incidental items were attenuated on cued recall tests and were eliminated on recognition tests. Younger subjects profited more from retrieval cues that were associations they had themselves generated than from retrieval cues that were normed common associations; older subjects made comparable use of the 2 cue types.