Auditory priming in elderly adults: impairment of voice-specific implicit memory

Abstract

Previous research has shown that elderly adults often exhibit intact priming effects on visual implicit memory tests, but little is known about auditory priming and ageing. We examined priming effects on auditory stem-completion and filter identification tasks in older and younger adults. Young subjects showed more priming when speaker's voice was the same as study and test than when it differed, but elderly subjects failed to exhibit this voice-specific priming effect in each of five experiments. The elderly did, however, show robust nonspecific priming. We attempt to rule out hearing deficit accounts of the priming impairment and consider alternative theoretical interpretations of the effect.