Age differences in everyday memory: Laboratory analogues of telephone number recall.

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to examine age differences in memory for telephone numbers by adults ranging from 18 to 85 years of age. In the first 2 studies, using visual simultaneous presentation, age declines in immediate recall were evident on 10-digit numbers, but not on 3-digit numbers. With 7-digit numbers, the youngest group performed significantly better than the oldest (70-85 years) group. In the second study, more marked age declines occurred when subjects had to redial a number after a busy signal. The third experiment replicated the observed aging pattern with auditory sequential presentation. Also, chunked presentation of local telephone numbers resulted in high performance for old and young in sequential recall. The findings were discussed in relation to task processing demands and practical issues related to telephone number recall.

Remembering Numbers in Old Age: Mnemonic Training Versus Self-Generated Strategy Training

“…Although no training in using the mnemonic to remember numbers was provided during these sessions, it could be argued that these introductory sessions favored the mnemonic group over the self-generated strategy group. As noted, NUMERICAL MEMORY TRAINING 211 however, we argue that these instructions in the features of the mnemonic made the mnemonic group comparable to the self-generated strategy group in terms of pretraining skills; obviously, the latter group arrived at the laboratory equipped with personal strategies regarding historical dates and idiosyncratic knowledge pertaining to number combinations (Hill, Schwob, & Ottman, 1993;West & Crook, 1990). The assumption that instructions in the mnemonic steps per se did not facilitate number recall was supported by the facts that (a) the mnemonic group's performance in the first test of number recall during training was indistinguishable from their pretest performance and (b) the two training groups performed at the same level in the first training test.…”

“…This research indicates that older adults who report using elaborative processing at encoding of numerical information may remember more than those who do not engage in semantically driven encoding (Hill, Schwob, & Ottman, 1993;West & Crook, 1990).…”

Shifting Levels of Analysis in the Investigation of Cognitive Aging

“…picture recognition Smith ct al. [1990] Limitations in working memory capacity prose recall Stine [1990] Deficits in working memory and possibly spatial processing capacity prose recall Stine et al [1990] Decreases in spontaneous strategic encoding, resistance to distraction, and impaired retrieval telephone number recall West and Crook [1990] Deficiency in organizational processes word recall Witte et al [1990] methods is the collection of information on several variables from each participant, the proposed methods do not represent a major shift for researchers working within the psy chometric perspective because they have a long tradition of relying upon multivariate assessment. The present discussion is nev ertheless relevant to psychometric researchers because they typically have attempted to ex plain all of the variance in the dependent vari ables, not merely the age-associated variance.…”

Compact Disc‐interactive Memory Training With the Elderly

“…Thus, the programming abides by a philosophy that calls for a diversified multidimensional approach to training and one that recognizes the increased range of individual differences among older adult learners (Riley, 1992). Furthermore, the memory improvement literature has shown that training on tasks that simulate everyday activities yields effective gains among elderly adults and generalizes to the real world activities being simulated (West, 1992;West & Crook, 1990). In addition, Poon (1980) the attitude that s/he is capable of carrying out the desired changes in behavior and will be successful in undertaking efforts to do so; (b) it should provide some measure of progress to demonstrate the efficacy of the skill to the learner; (c) it should provide salient intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcers to maintain the skill; (d) it should encourage the learner to practice the skills periodically; and, (e) it should be sensitive to individual differences.…”