Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1983 Jul;38(4):439-46.
doi: 10.1093/geronj/38.4.439.

Age-related differences in memory for lateral orientation of pictures

J C Bartlett, R E Till, M Gernsbacher, W Gorman

Age-related differences in memory for lateral orientation of pictures

J C Bartlett et al. J Gerontol. 1983 Jul.

Abstract

Two experiments examined memory for the lateral orientation of scenic pictures by young and elderly adults. In Experiment 1, an input list of pictures was followed by a test demanding discrimination between (a) targets versus reversed copies of input items, or (b) targets versus new pictures which verbally resembled input items. The age-related difference was reliably larger in the former task than in the latter. Experiment 2 compared incidental versus intentional acquisition of orientation under conditions of short (1 second) and long (5 second) presentation of pictures at input. With short presentation, though not with long presentation, intentional instructions reliably impaired orientation memory. With both presentation times, robust age-related differences were obtained. The results suggest an age-related deficit in truly non-intentional encoding of orientation, and pose a challenge for capacity theories of memory across the lifespan.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Discrimination (A′) between targets and reversals (reversal condition) and between targets and verbal-match items (verbal-match condition) as a function of age and discrimination-difficulty.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Arenberg D. Differences and changes with age in the Benton Visual Retention Test. Journal of Gerontology. 1978;33:534–540. - PubMed
    1. Arenberg D. Estimates of age changes on the Benton Visual Retention Test. Journal of Gerontology. 1982;37:87–90. - PubMed
    1. Attig M, Hasher L. The processing of frequency of occurrence information by adults. Journal of Gerontology. 1980;35:66–69. - PubMed
    1. Craik FIM, Simon E. Age differences in memory; The roles of attention and depth of processing. In: Poon LW, Fozard JL, Cermak LS, Arenberg D, Thompson LW, editors. New directions in memory and aging: Proceedings of the George Talland memorial conference. Lawrence Erlbaum; Hillsdale, N.J.: 1980.
    1. Ferris SH, Crook T, Clark E, McCarthy M, Rae D. Facial recognition memory deficits in normal aging and senile dementia. Journal of Gerontology. 1980;35:707–714. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources