AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN MEMORY ILLUSIONS - REVELATION EFFECT

Older adults are often more susceptible to various illusions and disto rtions of memory than young adults. In the experiments reported here, we explored the question of whether normal aging was associated with a larger revelation. effect, an illusion of memory in which items that are revealed gradually during a recognition test are more likely to be called old than unrevealed items that are shown in their entirety. Co ntrary to expectations, older adults were not susceptible to this memo ry illusion. A revelation effect occurred for young but not older adul ts, even when older adults were similar to young adults on measures of recognition and repetition priming. When data across experiments were combined, there was evidence for a negative revelation effect in olde r adults in which revealed items were less likely called old than unre vealed items. These results place boundary conditions on the claim tha t older adults are more susceptible than young adults to memory illusi ons, and imply that one or more mechanisms underlying the revelation e ffect are age sensitive.