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Young and elderly adults received a series of tasks (e.g., card sorting, arithmetic) that were planned for performance and subsequently performed with varying frequencies under intentional and incidental memory conditions. Following the series of tasks, subjects estimated the frequencies with which task activities had been both performed and planned. Recognition memory scores derived from performance judgment scores revealed a significant age deficit in identifying those activities that had been performed earlier. However, memory was unaffected by intentionality at each age level. These results imply a modest age deficit for encoding rehearsal-independent episodic events. On the other hand, no age differences were found for reality monitoring. That is, elderly adults were as proficient as young adults in discriminating between planning of an activity and the performance of an activity in terms of absolute frequency judgment scores.

Previous studies concerned with subjective organization occurring during free-recall learning have not provided consistent evidence for a hypothesis of organizational deficiency in the elderly. To assess the role of recall conditions in this discrepancy, the free-recall learning of younger and older adults was examined under conditions where the recalled words were either visible or not visible. Also, 5 measures of subjective organization, including measures used in earlier studies, were used to assess the role of measurement factors in producing the inconsistent findings. Younger adults, regardless of recall condition, recalled more words and showed more subjective organization than did the older adults with each of the measures. List length, rather than type of recall trial or measure of subjective organization, seems to be responsible for the conflicting findings obtained by other investigators.