ADULT AGE-DIFFERENCES IN TEMPORAL MEMORY FOR CYCLIC ACTIONS

Adult age differences in temporal memory for bipolar or cyclic actions were investigated in three experiments. Cyclic actions are ones that have opposite poles in regard to their effect on an object (e.g., open ing and closing a purse). For such actions, the critical memory functi on is to remember which pole occurred last. Temporal memory was tested by having subjects judge which component of a series of bipolar actio ns had been performed more recently (e.g., opening or closing a purse) . Recency judgments were found to be as accurate under incidental memo ry conditions as they were under intentional memory conditions for bot h young and elderly adults. The accuracy of recency judgments was less for bipolar actions performed in three cycles than for bipolar action s performed in one cyclefor both young and elderly adults. Adult age d ifferences in the accuracy of recency judgments were found to be negli gible.