Abstract
Younger adults recall more information from episodic memory tasks than do older adults. Because longitudinal studies are rare and often incompatible, the extent of actual late-life memory change is not well established. We assemble two different longitudinal samples of normal older adults, each of which is tested twice at a 3-year interval, using a large battery of episodic memory indicators. Together, two-wave data from both the Victoria Longitudinal Study in Canada (n=400) and the Kungsholmen Project in Sweden (n=168) cover a 40-year span of adulthood, ranging from 54 to 94 years of age. Principal memory tasks include categorizable word lists, story recall, and random word lists, as well as indicators of cognitive support. Overall, an examination of performance on sets of common and complementary episodic tasks reveals that, for both samples, actual 3-year changes are modest and that, when decline occurs, it is gradual. The exception—greater decline for more supported tasks—suggests that these may be especially sensitive to late-life changes.
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The Victoria Longitudinal Study is supported by Grant AG08235 from the National Institute on Aging to R.A.D., who acknowledges additional support from the Canada Research Chairs program. The Kungsholmen Project is supported by grants from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Swedish Council for Social Research to L.B.
Note—This article was reviewed and accepted by the previous editorial team, under Morton Ann Gernsbacher.
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Dixon, R.A., Wahlin, Å., Maitland, S.B. et al. Episodic memory change in late adulthood: Generalizability across samples and performance indices. Memory & Cognition 32, 768–778 (2004). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195867
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195867