AGE-DIFFERENCES IN HYPERMNESIA - WORD GAIN VERSUS WORD LOSS

A hypermnesic task was administered to 82 younger adults (ages 27-39), 63 middle-aged adults (ages 40-59), and 119 older adults (ages 60-87) . Previous research suggests that relational encoding prevents loss of items and item-specific encoding promotes item gains in a hypermnesic task (Klein et al., 1989) and that there are age differences in relat ional but not item-specific encoding (Luszcz et al., 1990). This infor mation provided the basis for three predictions: (a) There are age dif ferences in hypermnesia, (b) there are age differences in word losses in a hypermnesic task, and (c) there are no age differences in word ga ins in a hypermnesic task. In order to manipulate type of encoding, a list of words with high association strength (to evoke relational enco ding) and words with low association strength (to evoke item-specific encoding) was constructed. The results of this investigation provide s upport for the encoding manipulation and for all three predictions. In addition, the nature of the age differences in word loss observed sug gests that although older adults may be capable of relational encoding , this form of encoding is not as effective at preventing word loss fo r them as it is for younger adults.