title: Effects of repetition on age differences in associative recognition.
abstract: The study reported here examined the effect of repetition on age differences in associative recognition using a paradigm designed to encourage recollection at test. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs presented one, two, four, or eight times. Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and pairs consisting of two unstudied words (new lures). Participants gave old/new responses and then indicated whether their responses were based on details that they could recollect or on familiarity. Older adults exhibited an ironic effect of repetition-an increase in false alarms on rearranged lures with more study opportunities-whereas young adults did not. Older adults also claimed to recall details of the study episode for rearranged lures whose constituent words were presented more frequently, but this was not true for young adults. Although both young and older adults said that they based correct rejections of rearranged lures on memory for details of the study episode, this effect was stronger for young adults. The observed age differences are consistent with older adults having reduced use of recollection in associative recognition tasks.
authors.affiliation: a Register Data and Analytics, Square, Inc ., San Francisco , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Van Ocker
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Pitzer College , Claremont , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Leah L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Light
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Pitzer College , Claremont , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Darlene
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Olfman
authors.affiliation: c Office of Institutional Research, Dickinson College , Carlisle , PA.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rivera
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Memory and aging; associative recognition; dual process models; recollection; repetition effects