Age differences in adults' scene memory: knowledge and strategy interactions

Abstract

Three studies explored young and old adults' use of knowledge to support memory performance. Subjects viewed slides of familiar scenes containing high expectancy and low expectancy items and received free recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), cued recall (Experiments 1 and 2), and recognition (Experiments 1 and 2) tests. In Experiment 1 encoding intentionality was varied between subjects. Young adults performed better than old adults on all tests, but on all tests, both age groups produced a similar pattern of better memory of high expectancy than low expectancy items and showed an encoding intentionality effect for low expectancy items. In Experiments 2 and 3 all subjects were told to intentionally encode only one item from each scene; the remaining items could be encoded incidentally. Young adults performed better than old adults, although again, the pattern of performance of the two age groups was similar. High expectancy and low expectancy intentional items were recalled equally well, but high expectancy incidental items were recalled better than low expectancy incidental items. Low expectancy intentional items were recognized better than high expectancy intentional items, but incidental high expectancy items were recognized better than incidental low expectancy items. It was concluded that young and old adults use their knowledge in similar ways to guide scene memory. The effects of item expectancy and item intentionality were interpreted within Hasher & Zacks' (2) model of automatic and effortful processes.