INFLUENCES OF ITEM ORGANIZABILITY AND SEMANTIC RETRIEVAL CUES ON WORDRECALL IN VERY OLD-AGE

This research investigated the influence of organizational structure i n the materials and category cues at retrieval on episodic memory perf ormance in very old age. A community-based sample of healthy, very old adults (N = 224) between 75 and 96 years was presented with two lists of words: a list of semantically unrelated words and a list of words from four taxonomic categories randomly intermixed. Free recall was as sessed for both tasks and, for the organizable list, subjects received a cued recall test as well. Results showed an overall age-related det erioration of memory performance, although the ability to utilize item organizability and retrieval cues remained intact across age. Evidenc e from data on memory performance, as well as analyses of the nature o f organizable free recall, suggests that problems at both encoding and retrieval may underlie the age-related performance deficit. In additi on, there were age-related increases in (a) forgetting between free an d cued recall, and (b) intrusion errors. Finally, regression analyses indicated that, in addition to age, level of schooling as well as mark ers of general cognitive status (the Mini-Mental State Examination) an d fluid intelligence (Block Design) accounted for performance variatio n across all memory tasks.