AGE-RELATED RETENTION OF SKILLED MEMORY-SEARCH - EXAMINATION OF ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING, INTERFERENCE, AND TASK-SPECIFIC SKILLS

Young and older adults performed skilled memory search after either a 3- or 6-month retention interval. Participants were first trained in c onsistent-mapping (CM) memory search; then, one of the search conditio ns was subjected to interfering processing activity prior to the reten tion interval. Retention testing simultaneously examined situations wh ere interfering processing activity either did or did not intervene be tween original learning and retention testing. In addition, general ta sk-specific learning was assessed. Results indicate that (a) old and y oung adults equally retained general, task-specific skills; (b) old ad ults' performance declined more than young adults' performance for tra ined CM stimuli; (c) when an interfering processing activity was inser ted prior to the retention interval, old adults' performance declined disproportionately more than young adults' performance, especially whe n compared to the task not subjected to such interference; and (d) for both old and young adults all initial retention deficits were quickly eliminated within retention retraining.