Age differences in the effects of experimenter-instructed versus self-generated strategy use.
Background/Study Context: Interactive imagery is superior to rote repetition as an encoding strategy for paired associate (PA) recall. Younger and older individuals often rate these strategies as equally effective before they gain experience using each strategy. The present study investigated how experimenter-supervised and participant-chosen strategy experience affected younger and older adults' knowledge about the effectiveness of these two strategies.


METHODS
Ninety-nine younger (M = 19.0 years, SD = 1.4) and 90 older adults (M = 70.4 years, SD = 5.2) participated in the experiment. In learning a first PA list participants were either instructed to use imagery or repetition to study specific items (supervised) or could choose their own strategies (unsupervised). All participants were unsupervised on a second PA list to evaluate whether strategy experience affected strategy knowledge, strategy use, and PA recall.


RESULTS
Both instruction groups learned about the superiority of imagery use through task experience, downgrading repetition ratings and upgrading imagery ratings on the second list. However, older adults showed less knowledge updating than did younger adults. Previously supervised younger adults increased their imagery use, improving PA recall; older adults maintained a higher level of repetition use.


CONCLUSIONS
Older adults update knowledge of the differential effectiveness of the rote and imagery strategies, but to a lesser degree than younger adults. Older adults manifest an inertial tendency to continue using the repetition strategy even though they have learned that it is inferior to interactive imagery.
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0170, USA. christopher.hertzog@psych.gatech.edu
Christopher
C
Hertzog
Jodi
J
Price
John
J
Dunlosky
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D012718:Set, Psychology; D058013:Test Taking Skills; D055815:Young Adult