Aging and deficits in associative memory: What is the role of strategy production?

A new method was developed to investigate the degree to which age differenc es in strategy production mediate age differences in paired-associate recal l. Participants were instructed to use imagery or any strategy and were to report the strategy produced for each item. Age similarities in reported st rategy production were found for related (Experiment 1) and unrelated (Expe riment 2) word pairs: Both age groups (a) reported using effective mediator s (imagery and sentence generation) more often than using no mediators and (b) complied with instructions to use imagery. Although individual differen ces in strategy production were related to differences in recall performanc e, differential strategy production accounted for little of the age differe nces evident in associative memory.