11-3
Aging and Memory
Memory’s Prime
• If you asked an adult to recall the one or two
most important events over the last halfcentury, they tend to name events from their
teens or twenties.
-Our teens and twenties are also the time when we experience
many of life’s memorable “firsts”
• Our memory capacity declines as we age
Experiments
• Thomas Crook and Robin West
-Tested 1205 people on name memorization.
-Results on graph on page 177; Figure 11.6
• David Schonfield and Betty Anne Robertson
-Asked adults of various ages to learn a list of 24 words and asked to:
1) Recall as many words as they could from the list
2) Recognize as many words as they could from the list
-Results on graph on page 178; Figure 11.7
Prospective Memory (“remember to…”)
• Remains strong when events help trigger
memories
-ex) walking by a convenience store triggers a “…pick up milk” memory
• Time-based tasks are more challenging for
older people
-ex) “remember the 3 pm meeting”
• Habitual tasks are also challenging
-ex) “remember to take medication 3 times daily”