Age-Related Retention of Skilled Memory Search: Examination of Associative Learning, Interference, and Task-Specific Skills

Abstract

Young and older adults performed skilled memory search after either a 3- or 6-month retention interval. Participants were first trained in consistent-mapping (CM) memory search; then, one of the search conditions was subjected to interfering processing activity prior to the retention interval. Retention testing simultaneously examined situations where interfering processing activity either did or did not intervene between original learning and retention testing. In addition, general task-specific learning was assessed. Results indicate that (a) old and young adults equally retained general, task-specific skills; (b) old adults' performance declined more than young adults' performance for trained CM stimuli; (c) when an interfering processing activity was inserted prior to the retention interval, old adults' performance declined disproportionately more than young adults' performance, especially when compared to the task not subjected to such interference; and (d) for both old and young adults all initial retention deficits were quickly eliminated within retention retraining.

Instance-based automaticity and aging: Acquisition, reacquisition, and long-term retention.

“…In Experiment 2, the second two goals were addressed by retraining young and older adults who participated in Experiment 1. Results revealed that older adults retained less than young adults, consistent with previous research (e.g., Fisk et al, 1994; Fisk et al, 1995; Park et al, 1986; Park et al, 1988). Although reacquisition to asymptote was slower for older participants than for young participants, the returning older adults were substantially faster than age-matched controls to reach asymptote during reacquisition training.…”

“…One important feature of this experiment is that the young and older participants in our study were trained to similar levels of initial learning. The results of the present experiment revealed a tendency for older adults to show poorer retention of instance-based automaticity than young adults, consistent with the findings of several previous studies (e.g., Fisk et al, 1994; Fisk et al, 1995; Park et al, 1986; Park et al, 1988).…”

“…In recent studies using a variety of laboratory and real-world tasks, age deficits in learning and cognitive skill acquisition have also been reported (e.g., Charness & Campbell, 1988; Czaja & Sharit, 1993; Fisk, Cooper, Hertzog, & Anderson-Garlach, 1995; Fisk & Warr, 1998; Rogers, Fisk, & Hertzog, 1994; Salthouse, 1994a). Although discrepancies exist in the literature investigating the effects of age on practice-related improvements in performance, it is well established that there are age differences in the attained levels of asymptotic performance (e.g., see Charness & Campbell, 1988; Fisk, Hertzog, Lee, Rogers, & Anderson-Garlach, 1994; Fisk, McGee, & Giambra, 1988; Jenkins, Myerson, Joerding, & Hale, 2000; Winn, Elias, & Marshall, 1976).…”

Cognitive skill acquisition and transfer in younger and older adults.

“…However, most studies with young adults have reported that skilled performance is highly stimulus specific with little transfer to new problem sets (e.g., Singley & Anderson, 1989; Speelman & Kirsner, 1997). It seems that there might be even less transfer of learned skills across problem sets for older adults than for younger adults (e.g., Charness & Campbell, 1988; A. D. Fisk, Cooper, Hertzog, & Anderson-Garlach, 1995; Rogers, 1992).…”

Optimal Time-of-Day and Consolidation of Learning in Younger and Older Adults

“…However, the benefits observed appear to be dependent on the task and conditions of learning. Some studies have reported that older adults do not improve as much as younger adults with extended practice on performance tasks (Fisk, Cooper, Hertzog, & Anderson-Garlach, 1995;Fisk & Warr, 1998;Jenkins & Hoyer, 2000;Rogers, Hertzog, & Fisk, 2000). Conversely, other studies have shown that older adults can benefit at least as much from practice as younger adults (Kramer, Hahn, & Gopher, 1999;Kramer, Larish, Weber, & d Bardell, 1998;Scialfa, Jenkins, Hamaluk, & Skaloud, 2000).…”