Dissociation of memory and awareness in young and older adults

Abstract

Young (mean age = 23.41 years) and older (mean age = 69.41 years) adults studied a list of 80 words. They were tested immediately and 7 days later for both yes/no recognition and for ability to complete fragments such as E D L M, with words, some of which had been studied previously. The fragment completion task was not described as a memory test and subjects were encouraged to respond to all word fragments. Younger adults scored higher on recognition than older adults but not on fragment completion. These results, similar to those obtained with amnesics, suggest that older adults are impaired on tasks which require a conscious effort to recognize an event but that memory without awareness is unaffected by age.