This study further tested an associative-deficit hypothesis (ADH; M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), which attributes a substantial part of older adults' deficient episodic memory performance to their difficulty in merging unrelated attributes-units of an episode into a cohesive unit. First, the results of 2 experiments replicate those observed by M. Naveh-Benjamin (2000) showing that older adults are particularly deficient in memory tests requiring associations. Second, the results extend the type of stimuli (pictures) under which older adults show this associative deficit. Third, the results support an ADH in that older adults show less of an associative deficit when the components of the episodes used are already connected in memory, thereby facilitating their encoding and retrieval. Finally, a group of younger adults who encoded the information under divided-attention conditions did not show this associative deficit.

Previous studies have established an associative deficit hypothesis (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), which attributes part of older adults' deficient episodic memory performance to their difficulty in creating cohesive episodes. In this article, the authors further evaluate this hypothesis, using ecologically relevant materials. Young and old participants studied name-face pairs and were then tested on their recognition memory for the names, faces, and the name-face pairs. The results extend the conditions under which older adults exhibit an associative deficit. They also show that reduced attentional resources are not the sole mediator of this deficit.Studies show that memory abilities decline in old age (e.g., Craik & Jennings, 1992;Salthouse, 1991). This decline, however, seems to be differential, characterizing only some memory functions, with episodic memory being particularly vulnerable to the effects of age (e.g., Craik, 1999;Light, 1991). Past research has tried to explain the mechanisms underlying the age-related decline in episodic memory, and several hypotheses have been advanced to explain this decline in memory performance in old age (see Light, 1991, for a review).Recently, Chalfonte and Johnson (1996) and Mitchell, Johnson, Raye, Mather, and D'Esposito (2000) suggested a binding deficit hypothesis, showing that older adults have a particular deficit in memory that requires the binding of information to contextual elements. Naveh-Benjamin (2000) extended this suggestion and proposed an associative deficit hypothesis (ADH), which focuses on the distinction between memory for single units and memory for the associations between these units. The ADH claims that older adults' deficiency in creating and retrieving links between single units of information is one of the main factors that leads to poorer episodic memory. The degree to which a given memory task requires the creation or use of such associations is a significant determinant of old people's memory performance.Naveh-Benjamin (2000) used procedures that allow the independent assessment of memory for component and for associative information (Humphreys, 1976; see the Methods section). The results of four studies provided support for the ADH by showing that older adults exhibit an associative deficit for different types of relationships, including interitem (word-word or nonword-word), as well as intraitem ones (a word and the font in which it was presented). Naveh-Benjamin, Hussain, Guez, and Bar-On (2003) have recently replicated some of these results by using item and associative recognition tests. In the Naveh-Benjamin et al. (2003) study, older adults were shown to be particularly deficient in memory tests that require associations. In addition, older adults showed an associative deficit even when pictures, which usually are remembered well by older adults, are used. Finally, the results of that study supported a prediction made by an ADH, namely, that older adults will show less of an associative deficit when the components of the episodes used are ...

Despite a tradition in cognitive psychology that views encoding and retrieval processes in human memory as being similar, F. I. M. Craik, R. Govoni, M. Naveh-Benjamin and N. D. Anderson (1996) have recently shown that notable differences exist between the 2 when divided-attention manipulations are used. In this article, the authors further examined this asymmetry by using several manipulations that changed task demands at encoding and retrieval. The authors also used a secondary-task methodology that allowed a microlevel analysis of the secondary-task costs associated with encoding and retrieval. The results illustrated the resiliency of retrieval processes to manipulations involving different task demands. They also indicated different loci of attention demands at encoding and retrieval. The authors contend that whereas encoding processes are controlled, retrieval processes are obligatory but do require attentional resources for their execution.

Divided attention at encoding leads to a significant decline in memory performance, whereas divided attention during retrieval has relatively little effect; nevertheless, retrieval carries significant secondary task costs, especially for older adults. The authors further investigated the effects of divided attention in younger and older adults by using a cued-recall task and by measuring retrieval accuracy, retrieval latency, and the temporal distribution of attentional costs at encoding and retrieval. An age-related memory deficit was reduced by pair relatedness, whereas strategy instructions benefited both age groups equally. Attentional costs were greater for retrieval than for encoding, especially for older adults. These findings are interpreted in light of notions of an age-related associative deficit (M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) and age-related differences in the use of self-initiated activities and environmental support (F. I. M. Craik, 1983, 1986).

Divided attention at encoding is well known to have adverse effects on episodic memory performance (e.g., Naveh-Benjamin & Greg, 2000). This article attempts to determine whether these effects are a result of the interruption of encoding of associative information among the components of an episode. Five experiments, using different types of episodes and episodes components, were conducted. Participants studied information under either full or divided attention and were then tested on their memory for both the episodes' components and the associations between them. Divided attention did not produce a differential deficit in memory for associative information; memory for the components suffered to the same degree as memory for the associations among the components. The cause of the dividedattention effect at encoding lies somewhere other than in the associative processes that are engaged.