MEMORY FOR CONTEXT AND ITS USE IN ITEM MEMORY - COMPARISONS OF YOUNGER AND OLDER PERSONS

This study compared memory for words and the front in which they appea red (or the voice speaking them) in young and old participants, to exp lore whether age-related differences in episodic word memory are due t o age-related differences in memory for perceptual-contextual informat ion. In each of 3 experiments, young and older participants were prese nted with words to learn. The words were presented in either 1 of 2 fo nt types, or in 1 of 2 male voices, and participants paid attention ei ther to the fonts or voices or to the meaning of the words. Participan ts were then tested on both word and font or voice memory. Results sho wed that younger participants had better explicit memory for font and voice memory and for the words themselves but that older participants benefited at least as much as younger people when perceptual character istics of the words were reinstated. There was no evidence of an age-r elated impairment in the encoding of perceptual-contextual information .