Encoding and retrieval differences between young and old: The impact of attentional capacity usage

An experiment was conducted to investigate (a) whether the semantic processing deficit in the aged can be attributed to age differences in capacity usage during encoding and (b) age differences in terms of the interaction between encoding and retrieval operations. Young and older adults engaged in both a primary (semantic, rhyme, and arithmetic questions) and secondary task (probe monitoring) at encoding and retrieval. The study provided no evidence for the hypothesis that the age-related semantic processing deficit is the result of age differences in capacity usage during semantic and nonsemantic encoding. However, there was evidence that reinstating the encoded semantic context with the same semantic cue at retrieval did not help older subjects as much as younger subjects at recall. These results were interpreted as suggesting that there may be an age deficit in the effective use of semantic contextual information at encoding and retrieval rather than a simple age deficit in semantic processing at encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).