Aging and forgetting in prospective and retrospective memory tasks

Abstract

Ss aged 52-83 years were asked to name 30 famous people 4 times over the course of an hour and to respond to 2 targets (a beard and a pipe) by marking the trial number on the response sheet. Initial performance in the prospective memory task was related only to a measure of incidental learning. Subsequent forgetting (i.e., success followed by failure) occurred more often for older Ss than for younger Ss, but there was no difference between the age groups in recovery (i.e., failure followed by success). Forgetting was predicted by age, even after a composite measure of general ability was included in the regression. Recovery was related to general ability alone. These results both replicate and extend those from a reanalysis of a previous study (Maylor, 1990a). They provide a striking contrast with the effect of age on retrospective memory, namely, age-related impairment on initial performance but no effect of age on subsequent forgetting.