IMPLICIT LEARNING OF A NONVERBAL SEQUENCE IN YOUNGER AND OLDER ADULTS

Two experiments examined age-related differences in implicit serial le arning using the M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (1987) task. Younger adu lts and 2 samples of older adults who differed in educational attainme nt, occupational status, and verbal ability were given a 10-trial repe ating sequence embedded in 100-trial blocks. On each trial, participan ts pressed a key that matched a designated spatial location. Implicit learning was inferred from the difference in RT between a random seque nce trial block and the immediately preceding block with the repeating sequence. Results indicated that negative transfer effects were compa rable for the younger and higher ability older adults, but lower abili ty older adults showed less evidence of implicit learning. On an expli cit task, younger and higher ability older adults were more accurate t han the lower ability older adults. The implications of these findings for current views on implicit learning in adulthood are discussed.