ODOR LEARNING, RECALL, AND RECOGNITION MEMORY IN YOUNG AND ELDERLY ADULTS

Use of an odor learning test and the California Verbal Learning Test i n young and elderly adults enabled comparison of age-related effects o n recall and recognition memory. Assessment of odor identification fur ther enabled study of which odor function (recall, identification, rec ognition) is most affected by aging, the odor functions' interrelation ships, and predictors of odor recall. Results suggested that both reca ll and recognition were significantly affected by aging and that the o dor-recall decline cannot simply be referred to poor identification. V ery similar age-related effect sizes were found for the 3 types of odo r functions. Finally, the combined ability to encode, store, and retri eve odors appears to predict overall recall performance (including its identification component) better than do identification and recogniti on.