AGE-DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICIT LEARNING OF HIGHER-ORDER DEPENDENCIES IN SERIAL PATTERNS

3 experiments examined serial pattern learning in younger and older ad ults. Unlike the usual repeating pattern, the sequences alternated bet ween events from a repeating pattern and those determined randomly. Th e results indicated that no one was able to describe the regularity, b ut with practice every individual in all 3 age groups (including old o ld) became faster, more accurate, or both, on pattern trials than on r andom trials. Although this indicates that adults of all ages are able to learn second-order statistical dependencies in a sequence, age-rel ated deficits were obtained in the magnitude of pattern learning. Ther e were also age differences in what was learned, with only younger peo ple revealing sensitivity to higher order statistical dependencies in the sequence. In addition, whereas younger people revealed evidence of their pattern learning in a subsequent conceptually driven production test, young-old and old-old people did not.