INHIBITORY CONTROL OVER NO-LONGER-RELEVANT INFORMATION - ADULT AGE-DIFFERENCES

Hartman and Hasher (1991) used a garden-path task in which younger and older adults generated the final word for each of a series of high-cl oze sentences. Under instructions to remember the final word, the expe riment included critical sentences for which the generated word was re placed by a new, to-be-remembered target. Using an implicit priming ta sk, the first experiment replicated a basic finding: Younger adults sh owed priming only for the target words, whereas older adults showed pr iming for both the generated and target words. Two experiments explore d boundary conditions. One showed that an additional sentence that int erpreted the new target word enabled older adults to narrow access to only the target word. The provision of additional time following the i ntroduction of the new target word did not. Specific information, not more time, is required for inefficient inhibitory mechanisms to clear the recent past from memory.