The authors analyzed the role of individual differences in age, gender, and
16-year declines in reasoning and vocabulary as predictors of 16-year chan
ges in text and list recall and recognition in 82 adults aged 55-81 years a
t baseline. Declines in reasoning as well as being older at baseline predic
ted declines in text recall. Male gender and declining in vocabulary predic
ted declines in list recall. There were no reliable predictors of declines
in recognition. The findings suggest that changes in abilities, as well as
age and gender, predict declines on memory tasks. However, the specific pre
dictors varied across tasks.