UNDERSTANDING PERFORMANCE AND LEARNING IN CONSISTENT MEMORY-SEARCH - AN AGE-RELATED PERSPECTIVE

This study was conducted to investigate learning in memory search task s. Young and old participants were trained for 5,640 trials of consist ent mapping (CM) and varied mapping (VM) memory search. After training , participants were transferred into New CM and CM Reversal conditions . During training, both young and old adults improved reaction time pe rformance, with more rapid improvement for the young adults. In CM tra ining, both age groups achieved zero comparison slopes, indicating aut omaticity in CM memory search. VM training maintained a large age-rela ted difference in search times. Age did not moderate the transfer effe cts, suggesting similar learning mechanisms were responsible for the o riginal CM training gains in both age groups; however, transfer effect s were different for CM Reversal and New CM. The pattern of transfer d ata argues against several possible mechanisms for automaticity in mem ory search. The data are most compatible with a hypothesis of memory-s et unitization as the locus of automaticity in memory search.