Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women.

Abstract

A mixed-modality (visual and auditory) continuous recognition task, followed immediately by a final recognition test, was administered to young (18-23 years), mid-life (38-50 years), and older (60-74 years) women. Subjects gave recognition responses for both the words and their presentation modality. Although older adults remembered less information about input mode than did the two younger groups, the age decrement was not the result of faster forgetting of such information by the elderly. When a ceiling effect at the initial lag was taken into account, forgetting rates for both words and input mode were comparable across the adult life span.

Verbal and Figural Recognition Memory: Task Development and Age Associations

“…In previous research, recognition of words (Lehman & M ellinger, 1986) or familiar line drawings (N ielsen-Bohlman & K night, 1995) immediately after initial presentation was at ceiling for both young and old adults, but performance was impaired for older subjects following a delay. In addition, the inclusion of a delay seems to reduce the tendency toward verbal labeling of nonverbal items (Daniel & Ellis, 1972) and visual labeling of verbal items (Hayashi, 1985).…”

Memory in Middle‐aged Adults

“…Storage failure does not seem to be a viable idea. In a study to test this idea, Lehman and Mellinger (1986) used a continuous recognition task with target words spaced at intervals of 0, 5, 10, 25, and 50 words. They found the rate of forgetting to be equal across young, middle-aged, and older subjects.…”

A Pilot Study of Performance in Young and Middle-Aged Adults on Verbal Recall

“…Older adults (e.g., age 60+ years) have lower verbal recall scores than younger adults (20s to 30s; Anderson, Craik, & Naveh-Benjamin, 1998;Burda, Bradley-Potter, Dralle, Murphy, Ries, & Roehs, 2009). In Lehman and Mellinger (1986), young, middle-aged, and older adults identified whether or not the verbal or visual presentation of words was one they recognized from a previous session; there were no statistically significant differences by age group. Although onset of degenerative diseases can begin in middle age (Yorkston, Miller, & Strand, 2004), only recently have investigators sought to assess performance of middle-aged adults on verbal recall tasks.…”

“…Older adults (e.g., age 60+ years) have lower verbal recall scores than younger adults (20s to 30s; Anderson, Craik, & Naveh-Benjamin, 1998;Burda, Bradley-Potter, Dralle, Murphy, Ries, & Roehs, 2009). In Lehman and Mellinger (1986), young, middle-aged, and older adults identified whether or not the verbal or visual presentation of words 'Address correspondence to Angela N. Burda, Ph.D., Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Northern Iowa, 230 Communication Arts Center, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0356 or e-mail (angela.burda@uni.edu).…”