EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS DIFFERENTIATE THE EFFECTS OF AGING ON WORD AND NONWORD REPETITION IN EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEMORY TASKS

Explicit memory declines with age while implicit memory remains largel y intact. These experiments extended behavioral findings by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in young and elderly adults during rep etition priming and recognition memory paradigms. Words and pronouncea ble nonwords repeated after 1 of 3 delays. Stimuli were categorized as either word-nonword or old-new. Repeated items elicited more positive -going potentials in both tasks. Hemispheric asymmetries for word and nonword processing were observed during lexical decision: Repetition e ffects were larger over the left hemisphere for words and over the rig ht hemisphere for nonwords. For the young, ERP repetition effects were larger during recognition memory. For old adults, conversely, repetit ion produced more positive-going waveforms during lexical decision. Th e elderly had ERP and behavioral deficits at long recognition delays. ERP repetition effects in the elderly, like behavioral performance, we re preserved in an implicit task but impaired in an explicit memory ta sk.