AGING AND INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKILLED MEMORY-SEARCH PERFORMANCE

We examined individual differences in measures of multiple intellectua l abilities and performance on a pure memory search task over 5 experi mental sessions. Old (n = 104) and young(n = 97) participants showed e xpected patterns of substantial improvement in memory search intercept s and slopes in consistently mapped (CM) conditions, relative to varie d mapping (VM) conditions. Initial (unskilled) CM and VM memory search was highly correlated with a Semantic Memory Access Speed factor and moderately correlated with General Intelligence. Structural equation m odels showed that measures of Semantic Memory Access remained a strong predictor of skilled CM search performance in both ags groups despite individual differences in CM memory search performance changes. These results indicate qualitative differences in the nature of automaticit y between memory search and visual search and suggest age invariance i n the mechanisms determining automaticity in memory search.